262 Pa. 176 | Pa. | 1918
Opinion by
We have found occasion several .times in reviewing criminal trials where we have discovered reversible error and directed another trial, to advert, because of complaints of counsel in relation thereto; to the brevity of the court’s instructions on the subject of a reasonable doubt, and in view of a second trial being ordered we have suggested that upon the retrial it would be well for the court to explain to the jury the legal meaning of the expression “reasonable doubt”; but this court has never held it reversible error in a trial for the court to instruct in the very language of the law; and stop with that. A positive refusal to give further instructions in such case where asked for in a point presented, correct in itself, would, of course, be reviewable on exception taken; but simple failure on the part of the judge to extend his instructions, without request, so as to include an explanation of the expression “reasonable doubt,” has never with us been held to be reversible error. Yet that is the one complaint here. Appellant was tried and convicted of having knowingly let a certain house for immoral and illegal purposes. In his charge to the jury,