Opinion ID: 6215723
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Grammar Problem

Text: ¶31 Finally, the supplemental instruction suffered from a significant grammatical error. In its effort to provide useful guidance to the jury, the trial court pared its definition—“any movement, however short in distance”—down to the point that it omits a subject (i.e., the person committing the seizing and the carrying) and an object (i.e., the person being seized and carried). As a result, the trial court’s definition did not require either. It also included no verbs, even though it purports to explain the meaning of two verbs. The instruction was consequently misleading and confusing because, without a subject, object, or any verb, the jury may not have understood what actus reus was required. ¶32 Though a trial court has an affirmative obligation to give a supplemental jury instruction when a jury “affirmatively indicates that it has a fundamental misunderstanding of an instruction it has been given,” Leonardo v. People, 728 P.2d 1252, 1255 (Colo. 1986) (emphasis added), trial courts must exercise caution in determining if a fundamental misunderstanding actually exists and, if so, take care to respond to the actual misunderstanding. An instruction that tracks the 15 language of the statute is presumed to be clear and understood by the jury. Id. at 1254–55. ¶33 The trial court’s error with respect to both the seizure element and the asportation element was compounded here because it appears to have misapprehended the jury’s question. The jury asked the trial court about the “parameters of kidnapping.” The jury did not ask a question about a particular element, nor did it mention any specific word or phrase. And, even though the jury asked about the parameters of the entire crime of kidnapping, the trial court effectively instructed the jury to replace the phrase “seized and carried” in the elemental instruction with “any movement, however short in distance.” Significantly, the jury was not instructed to use the supplemental instruction in addition to the elemental instruction. ¶34 We agree with trial counsel that under these circumstances it would have been appropriate for the trial court to simply refer the jury back to the elemental instruction for the crime of second degree kidnapping because that instruction described the parameters of the entire crime and, thus, appropriately responded to the question the jury actually asked. ¶35 For these reasons, we now hold that a trial court commits error when it presents the jury with a jury instruction that defines the phrase “seizes and carries,” in the second degree kidnapping statute, § 18-3-302(1), as “any 16 movement, however short in distance.” Such an instruction is impermissibly misleading because it constitutes a partial definition of asportation and eliminates the seizure requirement from the second degree kidnapping statute entirely. And, because—as used here—it includes no object, no subject, and no verb, the instruction also risks leading the jury to mistakenly believe the crime has no actus reus or to supply its own, incorrect, actus reus. ¶36 To the extent that People v. Owens, 97 P.3d 227, 237 (Colo. App. 2004); Rogers, 220 P.3d at 936–37; and Bondsteel, ¶¶ 109, 118, 442 P.2d at 900, 901, are contrary to this opinion, they are now overruled.