Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/236

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ESTELLE v. McGUIRE Opinion of O’Connor, J.

and to “determin[e]” whether there was a “clear connection” between these prior acts and the ones that resulted in Tori’s death. App. 40, 41. The trial court did not instruct the jury that it must first “determine” whether McGuire had in fact inflicted the prior injuries. The part of the instruction relied upon by the Court—“it may be logically concluded that if the defendant committed other offenses, he also committed the crime charged in this case”—does not make clear that it is the jury’s role to ascertain whether McGuire was the perpetrator of the prior abuse. Rather, coming as it does in the middle of what appears to be a conclusion of law, it is reasonably likely that the jury understood that such a determination had already been made and that its role was merely to determine if there was a “clear connection” between Tori’s prior injuries and the injuries that killed her. Although we “have defined the category of infractions that violate ‘fundamental fairness’ very narrowly,” Dowling v. United States, 493 U. S. 342, 352 (1990), it is well established that the fundamental fairness guarantee of the Due Process Clause requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt every element of the offense. In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364 (1970); McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U. S. 79, 85 (1986). This constitutional principle “prohibits the State from using evidentiary presumptions in a jury charge that have the effect of relieving the State of its burden of persuasion beyond a reasonable doubt of every essential element of a crime.” Francis v. Franklin, 471 U. S. 307, 313 (1985); Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U. S. 510 (1979). Thus, we have held that mandatory presumptions violate the Due Process Clause if they relieve the State of the burden of persuasion on an element of the offense. Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197, 215 (1977); Sandstrom, supra, at 520– 524. By contrast, a permissive inference is not a violation