Paulson v. State

In Paulson v. State, 28 S.W.3d 570, 573 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000) the Court of Criminal Appeals overruled Geesa's requirement that a definition of reasonable doubt be included in the charge. The Court found that "the better practice" was to give no definition of reasonable doubt at all to the jury. Id. The Court also held, however, that if both the State and the defense, agree to give the Geesa instruction to the jury, it would not result in reversible error if the trial court includes the instruction in the charge. Id. After the Paulson case, the court considered whether a trial court erred in including in the charge an instruction similar to the State's voir dire statements regarding reasonable doubt, and we held that it did not. See Jackson v. State, 105 S.W.3d 321, 325-26 (Tex. App. -- Houston [14th Dist.] 2003, pet. ref'd). The Court overruled Geesa because it concluded that the instruction was confusing and logically flawed. Ibid. The Court held that a definition of reasonable doubt is not required by the United States Constitution, the Texas Constitution or a Texas statute and that over a hundred years of pre-Geesa Texas precedent discourages it. Ibid. The Court concluded that it would be ill-advised for us to require trial courts to provide the jury with a redundant, confusing and logically flawed definition. In Paulson, the Court concluded that the Geesa instruction was redundant, confusing and logically flawed. Therefore, the Court decided that the better practice would be to give each party a choice in whether to have the Geesa instruction included in the jury charge.