Opinion ID: 1133622
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Potentially Ambiguous Curative Instruction

Text: Defendant contends that the trial court's admonition to the jury following his motion for mistrial was confusing and ambiguous, and that there is a reasonable likelihood that the jurors understood the instruction to mean they were to disregard all the expert testimony defendant introduced regarding his intent to commit the acts underlying the crimes. According to defendant, the instruction thus prevented the jury from considering evidence presented in his defense and lowered the prosecution's burden of proof, in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and corresponding provisions in the California Constitution. Defense counsel's objections to the prosecutor's questions regarding intent came near the end of the prosecutor's cross-examination of Dr. Bittle. After a brief redirect examination, the trial court excused the jury to allow defendant to make his motion for a mistrial. When the jury returned a few minutes later, the trial court gave the following extemporaneous instruction: Ladies and gentlemen, the Court wants to admonish the jury that they're to disregard questions that were given to the expert as to the intent of the defendant to commit the crime of the charge [ sic ] and to disregard any answers that may have been given to that question. Any objection [sic ] made to such questions are proper objections under the law. The court read the text of section 29 and continued: So there were some questions put to the expert asking him about whether or not the defendant may have had an intent to do this or that. I want you to disregard those questions and disregard any answers that may have been given, and also that the objections that were made to these questions were proper objections. So with that, you will follow my instructions, please. Engaging in an elaborate parsing of this instruction, defendant contends that the jurors would not know which questions and answers they were to disregard and which objections were proper under the law. Furthermore, defendant continues, the language of section 29 read by the court referred to the testimony of any expert, thus rendering the instruction equally applicable to the testimony of the other defense experts. In addition, section 29's statement that an expert shall not testify as to whether the defendant had or did not have the required mental states, according to defendant, would cause lay jurors to believe that they could not consider expert testimony regarding any matters that might assist them in deciding whether defendant formed the required intent. Defendant also observes that the prosecutor's initial improper question violated section 28, not section 29, and thus nothing in the instruction informed the jurors that Dr. Bittle could not state his opinion regarding defendant's capacity to form the required mental state. Under the circumstances, and in light of Dr. Coleman's subsequent testimony that expert witnesses are no better equipped than laypersons to determine the defendant's mental state at the time he or she committed an act, defendant contends that the curative instruction essentially directed the jury to disregard all the important testimony of defendant's mental health experts. If a jury instruction is ambiguous, we inquire whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury misunderstood and misapplied the instruction. ( Estelle v. McGuire (1991) 502 U.S. 62, 72 & fn. 4, 112 S.Ct. 475, 116 L.Ed.2d 385; People v. Avena (1996) 13 Cal.4th 394, 417, 53 Cal. Rptr.2d 301, 916 P.2d 1000.) `[T]he correctness of jury instructions is to be determined from the entire charge of the court, not from a consideration of parts of an instruction or from a particular instruction.' [Citations.] ( People v. Mussel-white (1998) 17 Cal.4th 1216, 1248, 74 Cal. Rptr.2d 212, 954 P.2d 475.) We find no reasonable likelihood that the curative instruction could have been understood in the manner suggested by defendant. Although particular portions of the instruction potentially might have been confusing, taken as a whole and in context, the instruction adequately directed the jury to disregard the prosecutor's questions regarding Dr. Bittle's opinion as to defendant's intent to commit the crimes. The jury was aware from the attorneys' comments that the major point of contention during Dr. Bittle's testimony was the prosecutor's questioning regarding capacity and intent. The court's instruction was given only minutes after these comments were made. There is no reasonable likelihood that the instruction to disregard questions that were given to the expert as to the intent of the defendant to commit the crime and any answers that may have been given was interpreted by the jurors as indicating they properly could consider the question regarding capacity, nor is there a reasonable likelihood the jury construed the instruction as referring to all of Dr. Bittle's testimony or the testimony of other defense experts. Otherwise, there would have been no reason for the jury to hear several days of expert psychiatric and psychological testimony regarding defendant's mental state, for the court to instruct the jury that it could consider and weigh expert opinions in deciding questions in controversy at trial, or for both the prosecutor and defense counsel to refer during argument to the expert testimony regarding defendant's mental disorders and mental state. [5]