McKinley v. State

— The defendant, Michael McKinley, was convicted by a jury of two counts of commission of a felony while armed, to-wit: robbery, Ind. Code § 35-12-1-1 (Burns 1975). He was sentenced to thirty years in prison. This direct appeal raises only the issues of the correctness of the trial court’s reasonable doubt instruction and the refusal of the reasonable doubt instruction tendered by the defendant.

The trial court did not give the standard reasonable doubt instruction but gave the following preliminary instruction number 5a:

“A reasonable doubt is a doubt that is based upon reason and common…