Jury instructions a crucial and often subtle element
By Kristen Green
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 11, 2002
The person most often quoted in defense attorney Steven Feldman's closing argument wasn't an insect expert or a patron of Dad's Cafe & Steakhouse.
It was Judge William Mudd, and the instruction Mudd gave Tuesday to the jury charged with determining whether David Westerfield is guilty of murder:
If one interpretation of evidence points to the defendant's guilt and the other to his innocence, you must adopt the interpretation that points to his innocence.
The judge's reading of the jury instructions – 63 pages of carefully crafted legalese – may be among the least fascinating aspects of a two-month trial memorable for its titillating testimony and complex scientific evidence.
But during deliberations, jury instructions often prove as important as the most damning testimony or flowery summation.
Even the most cohesive juries need direction about how to apply the law. Aside from the instructions, jurors have no specific guidelines on how to conduct their deliberations.
"Without the jury instructions, you've got 12 people rowing a boat with no sense of direction," said Jim Pokorny, a defense attorney for 25 years. "They don't know where they're going."
The jury went into deliberations Thursday to consider whether Westerfield is responsible for kidnapping and killing Danielle van Dam, his 7-year-old neighbor. The Sabre Springs design engineer has also been charged with misdemeanor possession of child pornography.
Before the attorneys began their closing arguments last week, Mudd spent more than 45 minutes reading the jury instructions, which included some fairly transparent guidelines. For example:
Accept the law as stated, regardless of whether you agree with it.
Don't be biased against the defendant because he was arrested and is being tried.
Don't be influenced by sentiment, conjecture and public opinion.
But other guidelines speak specifically to the charges Westerfield faces and how the law should be applied:
The defendant has a legal right not to testify, and if he doesn't, it cannot be held against him.
The defendant may be found guilty of possessing child pornography if the proof shows beyond a reasonable doubt that he possessed one or more pieces of child pornography. The jurors must agree whether an image or images constitute child pornography.
The defendant may be found guilty of murder with a special circumstance – murder during the commission of a kidnapping – if the jury finds that a person was killed and that the killing occurred during the course of the abduction.
But the importance of jury instructions often extends beyond the way jurors use the information.
For attorneys and the judge, the instructions are "absolutely critical," said Bob Grimes, a San Diego defense attorney. The majority of reversed convictions happen because of instruction errors.
Just last year, a California federal appeals court overturned a death sentence because the jury instructions contained a typographical error. Instead of telling the jury that the defendant, if convicted, would receive life without parole, the instructions stated "life with parole."
A number of prominent defendants have had their convictions or sentences overturned because of faulty or erroneous jury instructions, including Irangate figure Oliver North, television evangelist Jim Bakker and former San Diego Mayor Roger Hedgecock.
"This is why judges are very reluctant to extemporize when they're giving jury instructions," said Gerald Uelmen, a professor of law at Santa Clara University.
The jurors, Uelmen said, are expected to judge the facts and not the law. The purpose of the instructions is to explain to jurors what the law is, and they tend to rely on those guidelines quite heavily.
In Westerfield's trial, the prosecution and defense attorneys both proposed a set of instructions. Then, over two days, they hashed out the details in court, arguing which instructions should be eliminated and which should remain.
But legal experts say jury instructions aren't as critical in this trial because it requires an all-or-nothing finding on the special-circumstances allegation of murder committed during a kidnapping.
"Most murder cases are not that way," Grimes said.
Typically, a defendant is charged with murder and it becomes the jury's job to determine whether he should be found guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter.
Legal experts say the instructions are rarely a cause for deadlocked juries because jurors are told to send a note to the judge if they have trouble understanding something. That enables the judge to explain the legal terminology many people might not understand.
Realizing that the standard jury instructions used in civil and criminal cases contain muddled language, state court officials undertook a three-year review to make them more understandable. A revised version is expected by the end of the year.