US-CA11 · jury_instructions
11th Cir. Pattern Jury Instr. (Criminal) B2.1
The Duty to Follow Instructions And the Presumption of Innocence
Your decision must be based only on the evidence presented here. You must
not be influenced in any way by either sympathy for or prejudice against the
Defendant or the Government.
You must follow the law as I explain it – even if you do not agree with the
law – and you must follow all of my instructions as a whole. You must not single
out or disregard any of the Court's instructions on the law.
The indictment or formal charge against a defendant isn’t evidence of guilt.
The law presumes every defendant is innocent. The Defendant does not have to
prove [his] [her] innocence or produce any evidence at all. The Government must
prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If it fails to do so, you must find the
Defendant not guilty.
Provenance
- Source
- ca11.uscourts.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-08-20
- Edition
- criminal-2021-08
- Content hash
477b0f5fc5ebfd2b55befaaa3d40ab93b6990b1d0ea69958b4d12649e71614fc
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