Tag Archives: Strategy Notes and Practice Ideas


CC 200 Does Not Cure DA’s Misstatement of the Law When Instructions Are Silent on the Issue
August 5th, 2021

CC 200, paragraph 4, admonishes the jurors as follows:           If you believe that the attorney’s comments on the law conflict with my           instructions, you must follow my instructions. Typically reviewing courts rely on this admonition to assume that the jurors relied on the instructions instead of the arguments of counsel. When argument runs […]


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Is Felony Murder Based on “Inherently Dangerous” Felony Unconstitutionally Vague?
November 5th, 2019

People v. Frandsen (2019) 33 Cal.App.5th 1126 held that the California second-degree felony-murder, which requires a felony “inherently dangerous to human life” in the abstract, is not unconstitutionally vague.  Johnson v. United States (2015) 576 U.S. ___ [192 L.Ed.2d 569, 135 S.Ct. 2551] is distinguishable. Unlike the federal sentencing statute invalidated in Johnson, California’s second-degree […]


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Jury Unanimity (CC 3500 or CC 3501): Child Molestation: Emphasis of What Must Be Found Vis a Vis Multiple Sex Crimes
May 8th, 2015

To convict a defendant of multiple sex crimes that are not distinguished: the jury must find 3 prerequisites “‘We see no constitutional impediment to allowing a jury, so instructed to find a defendant guilty of more than one indistinguishable act, providing. . .three minimum prerequisites. . .are satisfied.’ [Citation.] Those prerequisites include generic evidence describing […]


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