Jackson v. Virginia

443 U.S. 307, 99 S. Ct. 2781, 61 L. Ed. 2d 560, 1979 U.S. LEXIS 10

Opinions

Mr. Justice Stewart

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Constitution prohibits the criminal conviction of any person except upon proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358. The question in this case is what standard is to be applied in a federal habeas corpus proceeding when the claim is made that a person has been convicted in a state court upon insufficient evidence.

I

The petitioner was convicted after a bench trial in the Circuit Court of Chesterfield Count y, Va., of the first-degree murder of a woman named Mary Houston Cole.¹ Under Virginia law, murder is defined as “the unlawful killing of another with malice aforethought.” Stapleton v. Commonwealth, 123 Va. 825, 96 S. E. 801. Premeditation, or specific intent to kill, distinguishes murder in the first from murder in the second degree; proof of this element is essential to conviction of the former offense, and the burden of proving it clearly rests with the prosecution. Shiflett v. Commonwealth, 143 Va. 609, 130 S. E. 777; Jefferson v. Commonwealth, 214 Va. 432, 201 S. E. 2d 749.

That the petitioner had shot and killed Mrs. Cole was not in dispute at the trial. The State's evidence established that she had been a member of the staff at the local county jail, that she had befriended him while he was imprisoned there on a disorderly conduct charge, and that when he was released she had arranged for him to live in the home of her son and daughter-in-law. Testimony by her relatives indicated that on the day of the killing the petitioner had been drinking and had spent a great deal of time shooting at targets with his revolver. Late in the afternoon, according to their testimony, he had unsuccessfully attempted to talk the victim into driving him to North Carolina. She did drive the petitioner to a local diner. There the two were observed by several police officers, who testified that both the petitioner and the victim had been drinking. The two were observed by a deputy sheriff as they were preparing to leave the diner in her car. The petitioner was then in possession of his revolver, and the sheriff also observed a kitchen knife in the automobile. The sheriff testified that he had offered to keep the revolver until the petitioner sobered up, but that the latter had indicated that this would be unnecessary since he and the victim were about to engage in sexual activity.

Her body was found in a secluded church parking lot a day and a half later, naked from the waist down, her slacks beneath her body. Uncontradicted medical and expert evidence established that she had been shot twice at close range with the petitioner’s gun. She appeared not to have been sexually molested. Six cartridge cases identified as having been fired from the petitioner’s gun were found near the body.

After shooting Mrs. Cole, the petitioner drove her car to North Carolina, where, after a short trip to Florida, he was arrested several days later. In a postarrest statement, introduced in evidence by the prosecution, the petitioner admitted that he had shot the victim. He contended, however, that the shooting had been accidental. When asked to describe his condition at the time of the shooting, he indicated that he had not been drunk, but had been “pretty high.” His story was that the victim had attacked him with a knife when he resisted her sexual advances. He said that he had defended himself by firing a number of warning shots into the ground, and had then reloaded his revolver. The victim, he said, then attempted to take the gun from him, and the gun “went off" in the ensuing struggle. He said that he fled without seeking help for the victim because he was afraid. At the trial, his position was that he had acted in self-defense. Alternatively, he claimed that in any event the State’s own evidence showed that he had been too intoxicated to form the specific intent necessary under Virginia law to sustain a conviction of murder in the first degree.²

The trial judge, declaring himself convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the petitioner had committed first-degree murder, found him guilty of that offense.³ The petitioner’s motion to set aside the judgment as contrary to the evidence was denied, and he was sentenced to serve a term of 30 years in the Virginia state penitentiary. A petition for writ of error to the Virginia Supreme Court on the ground that the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction was denied.⁴

The petitioner then commenced this habeas corpus proceeding in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, raising the same basic claim.⁵ Applying the “no evidence” criterion of Thompson v. Louisville, 362 U. S. 199, the District Court found the record devoid of evidence of premeditation and granted the writ. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed the judgment.⁶ The court noted that a dissent from the denial of certiorari in a case in this Court had exposed the question whether the constitutional rule of In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, might compel a new criterion by which the validity of a state criminal conviction must be tested in a federal habeas corpus proceeding. See Freeman v. Zahradnick, 429 U. S. 1111 (dissent from denial of certiorari). But the appellate court held that in the absence of further guidance from this Court it would apply the same “no evidence” criterion of Thompson v. Louisville that the District Court had adopted. The court was of the view that some evidence that the petitioner had intended to kill the victim could be found in the facts that the petitioner had reloaded his gun after firing warning shots, that he had had time to do so, and that the victim was then shot not once but twice. The court also concluded that the state trial judge could have found that the petitioner was not so intoxicated as to be incapable of premeditation.

We granted certiorari to consider the petitioner’s claim that under In re Winship, supra, a federal habeas corpus court must consider not whether there was any evidence to support a state-court conviction, but whether there was sufficient evidence to justify a rational trier of the facts to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. 439 U. S. 1001.

II

Our inquiry in this case is narrow. The petitioner has not seriously questioned any aspect of Virginia law governing the allocation of the burden of production or persuasion in a murder trial. See Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U. S. 684; Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197. As the record demonstrates, the judge sitting as factfinder in the petitioner’s trial was aware that the State bore the burden of establishing the element of premeditation, and stated that he was applying the reasonable-doubt standard in his appraisal of the State’s evidence. The petitioner, moreover, does not contest the conclusion of the Court of Appeals that under the “no evidence” rule of Thompson v. Louisville, supra, his conviction of first-degree murder is sustainable. And he has not attacked the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction of second-degree murder. His sole constitutional claim, based squarely upon Winship, is that the District Court and the Court of Appeals were in error in not recognizing that the question to be decided in this case is whether any rational factfinder could have concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing for which the petitioner was convicted was premeditated. The question thus raised goes to the basic nature of the constitutional right recognized in the Winship opinion.

III

A

This is the first of our cases to expressly consider the question whether the due process standard recognized in Winship constitutionally protects an accused against conviction except upon evidence that is sufficient fairly to support a conclusion that every element of the crime has been established beyond a reasonable doubt. Upon examination of the fundamental differences between the constitutional underpinnings of Thompson v. Louisville, supra, and of In re Winship, supra, the answer to that question, we think, is clear.

It is axiomatic that a conviction upon a charge not made or upon a charge not tried constitutes a denial of due process. Cole v. Arkansas, 333 U. S. 196, 201; Presnell v. Georgia, 439 U. S. 14. These standards no more than reflect a broader premise that has never been doubted in our constitutional system: that a person cannot incur the loss of liberty for an offense without notice and a meaningful opportunity to defend. E. g., Hovey v. Elliott, 167 U. S. 409, 416-420. Cf. Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U. S. 371, 377-379. A meaningful opportunity to defend, if not the right to a trial itself, presumes as well that a total want of evidence to support a charge will conclude the case in favor of the accused. Accordingly, we held in the Thompson case that a conviction based upon a record wholly devoid of any relevant evidence of a crucial element of the offense charged is constitutionally infirm. See also Vachon v. New Hampshire, 414 U. S. 478; Adderley v. Florida, 385 U. S. 39; Gregory v. Chicago, 394 U. S. 111; Douglas v. Buder, 412 U. S. 430. The “no evidence” doctrine of Thompson v. Louisville thus secures to an accused the most elemental of due process rights: freedom from a wholly arbitrary deprivation of liberty.

The Court in Thompson explicitly stated that the due process right at issue did not concern a question of evidentiary “sufficiency.” 362 U. S., at 199. The right established in In re Winship, however, clearly stands on a different footing. Winship involved an adjudication of juvenile delinquency made by a judge under a state statute providing that the prosecution must prove the conduct charged as delinquent— which in Winship would have been a criminal offense if engaged in by an adult — by a preponderance of the evidence. Applying that standard, the judge was satisfied that the juvenile was “guilty,” but he noted that the result might well have been different under a standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In short, the record in Winship was not totally devoid of evidence of guilt.

The constitutional problem addressed in Winship was thus distinct from the stark problem of arbitrariness presented in Thompson v. Louisville. In Winship, the Court held for the first time that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects a defendant in a criminal case against conviction "except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.” 397 U. S., at 364. In so holding, the Court emphasized that proof beyond a reasonable doubt has traditionally been regarded as the decisive difference between crimi-" nal culpability and civil liability. Id., at 358-362. See Davis v. United States, 160 U. S. 469; Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160, 174; Leland v. Oregon, 343 U. S. 790; 9 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 2495, pp. 307-308 (3d ed. 1940). Cf. Woodby v. INS, 385 U. S. 276, 285. The standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, said the Court, "plays a vital role in the American scheme of criminal procedure,” because it operates to give “concrete substance’? to the presumption of innocence, to ensure against unjust convictions, and to reduce the risk of factual error in a criminal proceeding. 397 U. S., at 363. At the same time, by impressing upon the factfinder the need to¡ reach a subjective state of near certitude of the guilt of the i accused, the standard symbolizes the significance that our ‘ society attaches to the criminal sanction and thus to liberty itself. Id., at 372 (Harlan, J., concurring).

The constitutional standard recognized in the Winship case was expressly phrased as one that protects an accused against a conviction except on “proof beyond a reasonable doubt. . . .” In subsequent cases.discussing the reasonable-doubt standard, we have never departed from this definition of the rule or from the Winship understanding of the central purposes it serves. See, e. g., Ivan V. v. City of New York, 407 U. S. 203, 204; Lego v. Twomey, 404 U. S. 477, 486-487; Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U. S. 684; Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197; Cool v. United States, 409 U. S. 100, 104. In short, Winship presupposes as an essential of the due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment that no person shall he._made to suffer the onus of a criminal conviction except upon sufficient proof — defined as evidence necessary to convince a trier of fact beyond a reasonable doubt of the existence of every element of the offense. -•

B

Although several of our cases have intimated that the fact-finder’s application of the reasonable-doubt standard to the evidence may present a federal question when a state conviction is challenged, Lego v. Twomey, supra, at 487; Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U. S. 356, 360, the Federal Courts of Appeals have generally assumed that so long as the reasonable-doubt instruction has been given at trial, the no-evidence doctrine of Thompson v. Louisville remains the appropriate guide for a federal habeas corpus court to apply in assessing a state prisoner’s challenge to his conviction as founded upon insufficient evidence. See, e. g., Cunha v. Brewer, 511 F. 2d 894 (CA8).⁷ We cannot agree.

The Winship doctrine requires more than simply a trial ritual. A doctrine establishing so fundamental a substantive-; | constitutional standard must also require that the factfinder will rationally apply that standard to the facts in evidence.⁸ - A “reasonable doubt/’ at a minimum, is one based upon “reason.” ⁹ Yet a properly instructed jury may occasionally convict even when it can be said that no rational trier of fact . could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and the same may ,. be said of a trial judge sitting as a jury. In a federal trial,' such an occurrence has traditionally been deemed to require reversal of the conviction. Glasser v. United States, 315 U. S. 60, 80; Bronston v. United States, 409 U. S. 352. See also, e. g., Curley v. United States, 81 U. S. App. D. C. 389, 392-393, 160 F. 2d 229, 232-233.¹⁰ Under Winship, which established proof beyond a reasonable doubt as an essential of Fourteenth Amendment due process, it follows that when such a conviction occurs in a state trial, it cannot constitutionally stand.

A federal court has a duty to assess the historic facts when it is called upon to apply a constitutional standard to a conviction obtained in a state court. For example, on direct review of a state-court conviction, where the claim is made that an involuntary confession was used against the defendant, this Court reviews the facts to determine whether the confession was wrongly admitted in evidence. Blackburn v. Alar bama, 361 U. S. 199, 205-210. Cf. Drope v. Missouri, 420 U. S. 162, 174-175, and n. 10. The same duty obtains in federal habeas corpus proceedings. See Townsend v. Sain, 372 U. S. 293, 318; Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, 506-507 (opinion of Frankfurter, J.).

After Winship the critical inquiry on review of the sufficiency of the evidence to support a criminal conviction must be not simply to determine whether the jury was properly instructed, but to determine whether the record evidence could reasonably support a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.¹¹ But this inquiry does not require a court to “ask itself whether it believes that the evidence at the trial established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” Woodby v. INS, 385 U. S., at 282 (emphasis added). Instead, the relevant question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. See Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U. S., at 362. This familiar standard gives full play to the responsibility of the trier of fact fairly to resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts. Once a defendant j has been found guilty of the crime charged, the factfinder’s role as weigher of the evidence is preserved through a legal, conclusion that upon judicial review all of the evidence is to¡ be considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution.¹² The criterion thus impinges upon “jury” discretion only to the extent necessary to guarantee the fundamental protection of due process of law.¹³

That the Thompson “no evidence” rule is simply inadequate to protect against misapplications of the constitutional standard of reasonable doubt is readily apparent. “[A] mere modicum of evidence may satisfy a ‘no evidence’ standard . . . Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U. S. 184, 202 (garren, C. J., dissenting). Any evidence that is relevant — that has any tendency to make the existence of an element of a crime slightly more probable than it would be without the evidence, cf. Fed. Rule Evid. 401 — could be deemed a “mere modicum.” But it could not seriously be argued that such a “modicum” of evidence could by itself rationally support a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt. The Thompson doctrine simply fails to supply a workable or even a predictable standard for determining whether the due process command of Winship has been honored.¹⁴

C

Under 28 U. S. C. § 2254, a federal court must entertain a claim by a state prisoner that he or she is being held in “custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” Under the Winship decision, it is clear that a state prisoner who alleges that the evidence in support of his state conviction cannot be fairly characterized as sufficient to have led a rational trier of fact to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt has stated a federal constitutional claim. Thus, assuming that state remedies have been exhausted, see 28 U. S. C. §2254 (b), and that no independent and adequate state ground stands as a bar, see Estelle v. Williams, 425 U. S. 501; Francis v. Henderson, 425 U. S. 536; Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72; Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391, 438, it follows that such a claim is cognizable in a federal habeas corpus proceeding. The respondents have argued, nonetheless, that a challenge to the constitutional sufficiency of the evidence should not be entertained by a federal district court under 28 U. S. C. § 2254.

In addition to the argument that a Winship standard invites replication of state criminal trials in the guise of § 2254 proceedings — an argument that simply fails to recognize that courts can and regularly do gauge the sufficiency of the evidence without intruding into any legitimate domain of the trier of fact — the respondents have urged that any departure from the Thompson test in federal habeas corpus proceedings will expand the number of meritless claims brought to the federal courts, will duplicate the work of the state appellate courts, will disserve the societal interest in the finality of state criminal proceedings, and will increase friction between the federal and state judiciaries. In sum, counsel for the State urges that this type of constitutional claim should be deemed to fall within the limit on federal habeas corpus jurisdiction identified in Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465, with respect to Fourth Amendment claims. We disagree.

First, the burden that is likely to follow from acceptance of the Winship standard has, we think, been exaggerated. Federal-court challenges to the evidentiary support for state convictions have since Thompson been dealt with under § 2254. E. g., Freeman v. Stone, 444 F. 2d 113 (CA9); Grieco v. Meachum, 533 F. 2d 713 (CA1); Williams v. Peyton, 414 F. 2d 776 (CA4). A more stringent standard will expand the contours of this type of claim, but will not create an entirely new class of cases cognizable on federal habeas corpus. Furthermore, most meritorious challenges to constitutional sufficiency of the evidence undoubtedly will be recognized in the state courts, and, if the state courts have fully considered the issue of sufficiency, the task of a federal habeas court should not be difficult. Cf. Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S., at 463.¹⁵ And this type of claim can almost always be judged on the written record without need for an evidentiary hearing in the federal court.

Second, the problems of finality and federal-state comity arise whenever a state prisoner invokes the jurisdiction of a federal court to redress an alleged constitutional violation. A challenge to a state conviction brought on the ground that the evidence cannot fairly be deemed sufficient to have established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt states a federal constitutional claim. Although state appellate review undoubtedly will serve in the vast majority of cases to vindicate the due process protection that follows from Winship, the same could also be said of the vast majority of other federal constitutional rights that may be implicated in a state criminal trial. It is the occasional abuse that the federal writ of habeas corpus stands ready to correct. Brown v. Allen, supra, at 498-501 (opinion of Frankfurter, J.).

The respondents have argued nonetheless that whenever a person convicted in a state court has been given a “full and fair hearing” in the state system — meaning in this instance state appellate review of the sufficiency of the evidence — ■ further federal inquiry — apart from the possibility of discretionary review by this Court — should be foreclosed. This argument would prove far too much. A judgment by a state appellate court rejecting a challenge to evidentiary sufficiency is of course entitled to deference by the federal courts, as is any judgment affirming a criminal conviction. But Congress in § 2254 has selected the federal district courts as precisely the forums that are responsible for determining whether state convictions have been secured in accord with federal constitutional law. The federal habeas corpus statute presumes the norm of a fair trial in the state court and adequate state postconviction remedies to redress possible error. See 28 U. S. C. §§ 2254 (b), (d). What it does not presume is that these state proceedings will always be without error in the constitutional sense. The duty of a federal habeas corpus court to appraise a claim that constitutional error did occur — reflecting as it does the belief that the “finality” of a deprivation of liberty through the invocation of the criminal sanction is simply not to be achieved at the expense of a constitutional right — is not one that can be so lightly abjured.

The constitutional issue presented in this case is far different from the kind of issue that was the subject of the Court’s decision in Stone v. Powell, supra. The question whether a defendant has been convicted upon inadequate evidence is central to the basic question of guilt or innocence. The constitutional necessity of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is not confined to those defendants who are morally blameless. E. g., Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U. S., at 697-698 (requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is not “limit [ed] to those facts which, if not proved, would wholly exonerate” the accused). Under our system of criminal justice even a thief is entitled to complain that he has been unconstitutionally convicted and imprisoned as a burglar.

We hold that in a challenge to a state criminal conviction brought under 28 U. S. C. § 2254 — if the settled procedural prerequisites for such a claim have otherwise been satisfied-— the applicant is entitled to habeas corpus relief if it is found that upon the record evidence adduced at the trial no rational trier of fact could have found proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.¹⁶

IV

Turning finally to the specific facts of this case, we reject the petitioner’s claim that under the constitutional standard dictated by Winship his conviction of first-degree murder cannot stand. A review of the record in the light most favorable to the prosecution convinces us that a rational factfinder could readily have found the petitioner guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of first-degree murder under Virginia law.

There was no question at the trial that the petitioner had fatally shot Mary Cole. The crucial factual dispute went to the sufficiency of. the evidence to support a finding that he had specifically intended to kill her. This question, as the Court of Appeals recognized, must be gauged in the light of applicable Virginia law defining the element of premeditation. Under that law it is well settled that premeditation need not exist for any particular length of time, and that an intent to kill may be formed at the moment of the commission of the unlawful act. Commonwealth v. Brown, 90 Va. 671, 19 S. E. 447. From the circumstantial evidence in the record, it is clear that the trial judge could reasonably have found beyond a reasonable doubt that the petitioner did possess the necessary intent at or before the time of the killing.

The prosecution’s uncontradicted evidence established that the petitioner shot the victim not once but twice. The petitioner himself admitted that the fatal shooting had occurred only after he had first fired several shots into the ground and then reloaded his gun. The evidence was clear that the two shots that killed the victim were fired at close, and thus predictably fatal, range by a person who was experienced in the use of the murder weapon. Immediately after the shooting, the petitioner drove without mishap from Virginia to North Carolina, a fact quite at odds with his story of extreme intoxication. Shortly before the fatal episode, he had publicly expressed an intention to have sexual relations with the victim. Her body was found partially unclothed. From these uncon-tradicted circumstances, a rational factfinder readily could have inferred beyond a reasonable doubt that the petitioner, notwithstanding evidence that he had been drinking on the day of the killing, did have the capacity to form and had in fact formed an intent to kill the victim.

The petitioner’s calculated behavior both before and after the killing demonstrated that he was fully capable of committing premeditated murder. His claim of self-defense would have required the trial judge to draw a series of improbable inferences from the basic facts, prime among them the inference that he was wholly uninterested in sexual activity with the victim but that she was so interested as to have willingly removed part of her clothing and then attacked him with a knife when he resisted her advances, even though he was armed with a loaded revolver that he had just demonstrated he knew how to use. It is evident from the record that the trial judge found this story, including the petitioner’s belated contention that he had been so intoxicated as to be incapable of premeditation, incredible.

Only under a theory that the prosecution was under an affirmative duty to rule out every hypothesis except that of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt could this petitioner’s challenge be sustained. That theory the Court has rejected in the past. Holland v. United States, 348 U. S. 121, 140. We decline to adopt it today. Under the standard established in this opinion as necessary to preserve the due process protection recognized in Winship, a federal habeas corpus court faced with a record of historical facts that supports conflicting inferences must presume — even if it does not affirmatively appear in the record- — that the trier of fact resolved any such conflicts in favor of the prosecution, and must defer to that resolution. Applying these criteria, we hold that a rational trier of fact could reasonably have found that the petitioner committed murder in the first degree under Virginia law.

For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.

It is so ordered.

Mr. Justice Powell took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

1 The degrees of murder in Virginia are specified in Va. Code § 18.2-32 (1975) as follows:

“Murder, other than capital murder, by poison, lying in wait, imprisonment, starving, or by any willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing, or in the commission of, or attempt to commit, arson, rape, robbery, burglary or abduction ... is murder of the first degree, punishable as a Class 2 felony.

“All murder other than capital murder and murder in the first degree is murder of the second degree and is punishable as a Class 3 felony.”

Class 2 felonies carry a term of 20 years to life. §18.2-10 (b) (1975). The sentence for Class 3 felonies can range from 5 to 20 years, § 18.2-10 (c). Murder itself takes its definition in Virginia from the common law. Stapleton v. Commonwealth, 123 Va. 825, 96 S. E. 801.

2 Under Virginia law, voluntary intoxication — although not an affirmative defense to second-degree murder — is material to the element of premeditation and may be found to have negated it. Hatcher v. Commonwealth, 218 Va. 811, 241 S. E. 2d 756.

3 When trial without a jury is had on a not guilty plea in Virginia, the court is to “have and exercise all the powers, privileges and duties given to juries . . . .” Va. Code § 19.2-257 (1975).

4 There is no appeal as of right from a criminal conviction in Virginia. Saunders v. Reynolds, 214 Va. 697, 204 S. E. 2d 421. Each petition for writ of error under Va. Code § 19.2-317 (1975) is reviewed on the merits, however, and the effect of a denial is to affirm the judgment of conviction on the merits. Saunders v. Reynolds, supra.

The petition for writ of error alleged that “the trial Court erred in finding the Petitioner guilty of first-degree murder in light of the evidence introduced on behalf of the Commonwealth, and on unwarranted' inferences drawn from this evidence.” The petitioner contended that an affirmance would violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In its order denying Jackson’s petition, the Virginia Supreme Court stated it was “of [the] opinion that there is no reversible error in the judgment complained of . . . .” Virginia law requires sufficiency claims to be raised on direct appeal; such a claim may not be raised in a state habeas corpus proceeding. Pettus v. Peyton, 207 Va. 906, 153 S. E. 2d 278.

5 The District Court correctly found that the petitioner had exhausted his state remedies on this issue. See n. 4, supra.

6 The opinions of the District Court and the Court of Appeals are not reported. The Court of Appeals’ judgment order is reported at 580 F. 2d 1048.

7 The Court of Appeals in the present case, of course, recognized that Winship may have changed the constitutional standard in federal habeas corpus. And the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently recognized the possible impact of Winship on federal habeas corpus in a case in which it held that “a rational trier of fact could have found the defendant . . . guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Spruytte v. Koehler, affirmance order, 590 F. 2d 335. An even more recent case in that court provoked a lively debate among three of its members regarding the effect of Winship upon federal habeas corpus. The writ was granted in that case, even though the trial record concededly contained “some evidence” of the applicant’s guilt. See Speigner v. Jago, 603 F. 2d 1208.

8 The trier of fact in this case was a judge and not a jury. But this is of no constitutional significance. The record makes clear that the judge deemed himself “properly instructed.”

9 A “reasonable doubt” has often been described as one “based on reason which arises from the evidence or lack of evidence.” Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U. S. 356, 360 (citing cases). For a discussion of variations in the definition used in jury instructions, see Holland v. United States, 348 U. S. 121, 140 (rejecting contention that circumstantial evidence must exclude every hypothesis but that of guilt).

10 This, of course, does not mean that convictions are frequently reversed upon this ground. The practice in the federal courts of entertaining properly preserved challenges to evidentiary sufficiency, see Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 29, serves only to highlight the traditional understanding in our system that the application of the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard to the evidence is not irretrievably committed to jury discretion. To be sure, the factfinder in a criminal case has traditionally been permitted to enter an unassailable but unreasonable verdict of “not guilty.” This is the logical corollary of the rule that there can be no appeal from a judgment of acquittal, even if the evidence of guilt is overwhelming. The power of the factfinder to err upon the side of mercy, however, has never been thought to include a power to enter an unreasonable verdict of guilty. Carpenters & Joiners v. United States, 330 U. S. 395, 408. Cf. Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U. S. 1, 13-14. Any such premise is wholly belied by the settled practice of testing evidentiary sufficiency through a motion for judgment of acquittal and a postverdict appeal from the denial of such a motion. See generally 4 L. Orfield, Criminal Procedure Under the Eederal Rules §§29:1-29:29 (1967 and Supp. 1978).

11 Until 1972, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit took the position advanced today by the opinion concurring in the judgment that the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard is merely descriptive of the state of mind required of the factfinder in a criminal case and not of the actual quantum and quality of proof necessary to support a criminal conviction. Thus, that court held that in a jury trial the judge need not distinguish between criminal and civil cases for the purpose of ruling on a motion for judgment of acquittal. United States v. Feinberg, 140 F. 2d 592, 594. In United States v. Taylor, 464 F. 2d 240 (CA2), Feinberg was overruled, partly on the strength of Winship. The Taylor court adopted the directed-verdict criterion articulated in Curley v. United States, 81 U. S. App. D. C. 389, 392-393, 160 F. 2d 229, 232-233 (If “reasonable” jurors “must necessarily have ... a reasonable doubt” as to guilt, the judge “must require acquittal, because no other result is permissible within the fixed bounds of jury consideration”). This is now the prevailing criterion for judging motions for acquittal in federal criminal trials. See generally 2 C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 467 (1969 and Supp. 1978).

12 Contrary to the suggestion in the opinion concurring in the judgment, .the criterion announced today as the constitutional minimum required to enforce the due process right established in Winship is not novel. See, e. g., United States v. Amato, 495 F. 2d 545, 549 (CA5) ("whether, taking the view [of the evidence] most favorable to the Government, a reasonably-minded jury could accept the relevant evidence as adequate and sufficient to support the conclusion of the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt”) (emphasis added); United States v. Jorgenson, 451 F. 2d 516, 521 (CA10) (whether, “considering the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, there is substantial evidence from which a jury might reasonably find that an accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt”) (emphasis added). Glasser v. United States, 315 U. S. 60, 80, has universally been understood as a case applying this criterion. See, e. g., Harding v. United States, 337 F. 2d 254, 256 (CA8). See generally 4 Orfield, supra n. 10, § 29.28.

13 The question whether the evidence is constitutionally sufficient is of course wholly unrelated to the question of how rationally the verdict was actually reached. Just as the standard announced today does not permit a court to make its own subjective determination of guilt or innocence, it does not require scrutiny of the reasoning process actually used by the factfinder — if known. See generally 3 F. Wharton, Criminal Procedure § 520 (12th ed. 1975 and Supp. 1978).

14 Application of the ' Thompson standard to assess the validity of a criminal conviction after Winship could lead to absurdly unjust results. Our cases have indicated that failure to instruct a jury on the necessity of proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt can never be harmless error. See Cool v. United States, 409 U. S. 100. Cf. Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U. S. 478. Thus, a defendant whose guilt was actually proved by overwhelming evidence would be denied due process if the jury was instructed that he could be found guilty on a mere preponderance of the evidence. Yet a defendant against whom there was but one slender bit of evidence would not be denied due process so long as the jury has been properly instructed on the prosecution’s burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Such results would be wholly faithless to the constitutional rationale of Winship.

15 The Virginia Supreme Court's order denying Jackson’s petition for writ of error does not make clear what criterion was applied to the petitioner’s claim that the evidence in support of his first-degree murder conviction was insufficient. See n. 4, supra. At oral argument, counsel for the petitioner contended that the Virginia sufficiency standard is not keyed to Winship. Counsel for the State disagreed. Under these circumstances, we decline to speculate as to the criterion that the state court applied. The fact that a state appellate court invoked the proper standard, however, although entitled to great weight, does not totally bar a properly presented claim of this type under § 2254.

16 The respondents have suggested that this constitutional standard will invite intrusions upon the power of the States to define criminal offenses. Quite to the contrary, the standard must be applied with explicit reference to the substantive elements of the criminal offense as defined by state law. Whether the State could constitutionally make the conduct at issue criminal at all is, of course, a distinct question. See Papachristou v. Jacksonville, 405 U. S. 156; Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660.