MURPHY

v.

UNITED STATES

BUFFINGTON, Circuit Judge.

While it took three days to try this case, and many substantial questions were involved, no error is now alleged save a single sentence of the charge as to a reasonable doubt which reads, “ ‘Reasonable doubt’ means a doubt for which some sound reason can he assigned in your minds.” Standing by itself and removed from the context, these words might possibly be open to'the objection raised in some adjudged cases that a doubt to be reasonable must be one which the juror must be able to justify in the regard of others. But when the instruction in that regard1 (printed in the margin) is regarded as a whole, it will be seen that the trial judge made no such test, nor did he attempt precisely to define what all agree cannot be so defined. The character of the doubt, the measure of its worth, were, with certain limitations, left wholly to each juror to decide for himself. He was told that reasonable doubt was one which “fails to convince your judgment,” one which “fails to convince * * * your conscience,” one which “fails to * • * satisfy your reason of the guilt of the accused.” It left the whole question of reasonable doubt to the judgment, conscience, and reason of each juryman. He was the arbiter of his own aet subject to appropriate limitations; it was left to his own judgment, his own conscience, his own reason. No juror could, under the instruction, have felt he must subject his reasonable judgment to any other test than his own judgment, conscience, and reason. To our mind the instructions given could not and did not mislead the jury or wrong the defendant.

The judgment below is affirmed.