Tag Archives: CALCRIM Is Not The Law


CALCRIM IS NOT “THE LAW”
August 2nd, 2022

Jury instructions “are not themselves the law,” “are not authority to establish legal propositions or precedent,” and “should not be cited as authority for legal principles in appellate opinions. [Citation] “At most, when they are accurate , … they restate the law.” ([citation], italics added by Montoyo court.) (People v. Montoya (2021) 68 Cal.App.5th 980, […]


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Judge’s Duty to Draft and Give Instructions Not Included in CALCRIM
May 3rd, 2022

In People v. Pettigrew (2021) 62 Cal.App.5th 477, 500 the judge erroneously instructed the jurors that they could consider the defendant’s attempted suicide as flight per CC 372. Instead, because no CC instructions addressed the issue of attempted suicide vis-a-vis consciousness of guilt the judge (or prosecutor who had presented the attempted suicide evidence and […]


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CALCRIM Is Not the Law
June 3rd, 2021

In People v. Burgess (Feb. 11, 2021, D076287) ___ Cal.App.4th ___ [pp. 6] the defendant maintained that his PC 29815 conviction must be reversed because no evidence showed his firearm restriction probation condition was ordered by a court. He pointed to the language in two jury instructions, CALCRIM Nos. 2512 and 3500, the first stating […]


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CALCRIM Is Not The Law And Is Not Sacrosanct
January 27th, 2015

  “Jury instructions are only judge-made attempts to recast the words of statutes and the elements of crimes into words in terms comprehensible to the lay person. The texts of standard jury instructions are not debated and hammered out by legislators, but by ad hoc committees of lawyers and judges. Jury instructions do not come […]


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