Jury Instructions

The instructions to the jury were crucial to determining a verdict - and which verdict. The instructions do not detail procedures for how deliberations should be managed. The jury instructions instruct the jury on what the burden of proof is for the People to convict the accused. How these instructions are worded can mean the difference between a Guilty and Not Guilty verdict.

I suspect that a jury trial is rarely so cut and dry that the jury can, without specific instruction about the law, determine a verdict. In our case, Reckless Driving, there were several requirements that needed to be met to reach a Guilty verdict. Each requirement needed to have unanimous agreement from the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. In the words of the Criminal Defender, Mr Shroettner, you can not think that "he probably did it" and deliver a Guilty verdict.

There were four requirements to prove the first count of the indictment: 1. The defendant was driving a vehicle, 2. the defendant was driving the vehicle on a highway (legal word for road), 3. the defendant violated a traffic law or laws (paraphrased), 4. the defendant, in the course of violating a traffic law or laws, had a wanton disregard for the safety of people or property. While this sounds straight forward so far, the other aspect to consider was that there were seven traffic laws cited.

To reach a decision, the jury had to also unanimously agree on which traffic law was violated and if the defendant showed wanton disregard on that particular violation. This can be examined for fairness in a couple of ways. First, the Sheriff's Deputy needed at least three traffic violations within the same act to cite the driver for reckless driving, but remember, the jury only needed to decide on one of the same 7 - this is such an interesting discrepancy.

The other interesting part is that whereas 84 votes were needed to delvier a verdict of Not Guilty (12 voters agreeing on Not Guilty for 7 violations), only 14 votes were required to deliver a verdict of Guilty (12 voters agreeing on 1 violation and that the driver showed wanton disregard). So whereas the accused is presumed innocent until pro ven guilty, there was a a longer road to a not guilty verdict than to a not guilty verdict. I was quite literally at odds with this circumstance and I describe why later on in my section on the verdict.