Case Title: Standard Jury Instructions

Citation: 723 So. 2d 123

Docket Number: 91815

State: florida

Court: Florida Supreme Court

Date: 1998-07-16T00:00:00Z

Document:
723 So. 2d 123 (1998)
STANDARD JURY INSTRUCTIONS IN CRIMINAL CASES (97-2).
No. 91815.

Supreme Court of Florida.
July 16, 1998.
Honorable Philip J. Padovano, Chair, Supreme Court Committee on Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases, for Petitioner.
William D. Matthewman, Miami, John H. Gutmacher, Orlando, Bob Dillinger, Public Defender, Sixth Judicial Circuit, Clearwater, and Arthur I. Jacobs, General Counsel for Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, Fernandina Beach, Responding.
PER CURIAM.
The Supreme Court Committee on Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases has submitted the following proposed amendments to the Florida Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases:
The foregoing list of proposed amendments was published in The Florida Bar News and comments were received. The Committee considered the comments and revised proposed amendments were published in The Florida Bar News on January 15, 1998. Several new comments were filed with this Court. In addition to some technical changes, the Court on its own motion has modified the proposed instructions as explained below.
First, the word "intentionally" has been added to the first element in the Committee's proposed new instruction on duress and necessity. Second, in the amended instruction on entrapment, the Court has changed the term "police" in the definition of information to "law enforcement." The instruction now reflects that an informant is an agent of law enforcement for the purposes of the entrapment defense.
With these changes, the Court hereby adopts the proposed amendments as set forth in the appendix attached to this opinion and approves them for publication. In doing so, we express no opinion on the correctness of these instructions and remind all interested parties that this approval forecloses neither requesting additional or alternative instructions nor contesting the legal correctness of the new instructions.
Accordingly, the new instructions are appended to this opinion and will be effective on the date this opinion is filed. The new language is indicated by underscoring; deletions are indicated by strike-through type.
It is so ordered.
HARDING, C.J., and OVERTON, SHAW, KOGAN, WELLS, ANSTEAD and PARIENTE, JJ., concur.
One of the difficult problems in instructing a criminal jury is to make certain that it is properly charged with respect to the degrees *124 or categories of guilt that may be applicable to a given crime. The supreme court in Brown v. State, 206 So. 2d 377 (Fla.1968) described these categories as follows:
Because it is often so difficult to determine these categories, the committee prepared a list of the offenses applicable to each of the crimes for which standard jury instructions had been drafted. At the same time, the committee recommended treating lesser degrees as category 3 or 4 offenses depending on the offense and treating attempts as a category 4 offense, thereby eliminating the first two Brown categories as separate categories. In its opinion dated April 16, 1981, in which it approved the new standard jury instructions, the supreme court also approved the schedule of lesser included offenses and accepted the recommendation of the committee to consolidate the four Brown categories into two categories. The supreme court directed that the four categories should be renumbered and designated as follows:
The court also directed that the appropriate Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure be amended to accommodate these changes. The categories of the offenses which appear on the schedule of lesser included offenses have been renumbered and designated according to the supreme court mandate.
In determining the appropriate lesser offenses for inclusion in the table, the committee followed certain guidelines: 1. No offense is deemed to be a lesser offense if it carries the same penalty as the crime under consideration. See Ray v. State, 403 So. 2d 956 (Fla.1981); State v. Carpenter, 417 So. 2d 986 (Fla.1982).
[1]  The revised schedule completely replaces the present version. The entire schedule, which is included in the appendix to this opinion, has been reorganized chronologically by statute number and also includes substantive changes.