Opinion ID: 1096134
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: the trial court erred in refusing to grant defendant's instruction d-5.

Text: Jones offered as one of his instructions to the jury instruction D-5. This instruction stated: The Court instructs the jury that the testimony of [M.J.] should be weighed with great caution and the jury may disbelieve such testimony all together if you believe it untrue, the jury being the sole judge of the credibility of the witness. The trial court refused the instruction, equating the instruction with those given for a co-conspirator or co-defendant. Jones contends that the refusal of D-5 was error, because M.J.'s testimony, due to her young age, should not have been thrown at the jury without proper instruction. He argues that the court may make the jury aware of the dangers of the testimony of a child of tender years. He submits that his instruction should have been given to inform the jury of the law applicable to the testimony of children of tender years. This Court has addressed this issue before in Bandy v. State, 495 So.2d 486 (Miss. 1986), and stated: Furthermore, the language of the instruction, in telling the jury to view L.H.'s testimony with great caution, sets out the same standard given to the jury for evaluating the testimony of accomplices and co-defendants. The instruction is given in those cases because of the inherent mistrust of those witnesses' veracity. That it is not necessarily the case with a child witness. In that case, it is not presumed that the child may be dishonest, but may simply that he or she may not have the capacity to understand sufficiently or remember correctly the events to which he or she is testifying. A child's testimony should not be viewed with a jaundiced eye as to whether or not the child is truthful  a child may be presumed to be as truthful as any other witness. If the jury is to be instructed at all with respect to the testimony of a child, it should be told to view the testimony in the light of the child's age and understanding, not his veracity. We hold, then, that it was not error to refuse this instruction. Bandy, 495 So.2d at 493. The instruction in Bandy was apparently rejected because it instructed the jury to receive the child's testimony with caution and amounted to a comment on the child's veracity. We did not prohibit instructions on the child's testimony, as an instruction that informs the jury to view the child's testimony in the light of the child's age and understanding is allowable. However, instructions that tend to comment on the truthfulness of the child's testimony should be rejected. See, Ivy v. State, 522 So.2d at 743. Instruction D-5 instructed the jury to weigh M.J.'s testimony with great caution. From the trial judge's comments he felt that the instruction, associating it with an instruction for co-conspirators or co-defendants, commented on M.J.'s veracity. The trial judge felt that the instruction went beyond a mere caution. The refusal of this type of instruction is not error. Bandy, 495 So.2d at 493. This assignment is without merit.