Does a court's instruction lightening the prosecution's burden of proof violate the accused's right to a jury trial?

California, United States of America

The following excerpt is from People v. Cavness, A137912 (Cal. App. 2015):

As this court stated in People v. Hunter, under the Fifth Amendment of the federal Constitution, "the prosecution must prove every element of a criminal offense beyond a reasonable doubt [citation], and the Sixth Amendment requires that determination to be made by the jury, not the court [citation]. Consequently, an instruction lightening the prosecution's burden of proof violates the accused's right to a jury trial. [Citations.]" (People v. Hunter (2011) 202 Cal.App.4th 261, 276.) These federal constitutional rights

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are implicated here. Therefore, we must apply the federal prejudice standard and determine whether or not the court's instructional error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. (Id. at p. 278, citing Chapman v. California, supra, 386 U.S. at p. 24.)

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