Tag Archives: Judge Duty To Instruct Correctly


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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Generic Pattern Instructions Should Be Tailored to the Facts of the Case
January 13th, 2022

The judge may not properly “refuse[] to tailor [an] instruction to the fact of the case.“ (People v. Hall (1980) 28 C3d 143, 159; see also People v. Falsetta (1999) 21 C4th 903, 924; People v. Fudge (1994) 7 C4th 1075, 1110; People v. Woods (1991) 226 CA3d 1037, 1054-55 [court has duty to “tailor […]


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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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