A trial judge's direction that evidence of good character 'may be of limited assistance' to the jury seriously disturbs the balance of the direction and constitutes a misdirection. A direction on drawing the ultimate inference of guilt from circumstantial evidence must be attached to the specific circumstantial evidence relied upon and must correctly state that the inference of guilt can only be drawn if the circumstances exclude any reasonable hypothesis consistent with innocence; a formulation referring to 'competing inferences equally open' misstates the standard.
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