Merzbacher v. State

KARWACKI, Judge.

In Wills v. State, 329 Md. 370, 620 A.2d 295 (1993), this Court exhaustively reviewed the history and constitutional imperative of the reasonable doubt instruction. We issued a writ of certiorari in this case to consider the adequacy of the instruction given on that subject, as well as the propriety of several evidentiary rulings made by the trial judge. Finding no error, we shall affirm.

I

John Joseph Merzbacher and Elizabeth Murphy first encountered each other in 1972 when Merzbacher was a teacher at the Catholic Community Middle School of Baltimore (“CCMS”). Murphy, who was…