Opinion ID: 1497205
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Proffer a Jury Instruction/Misleading Argument on a Jury Instruction

Text: Flowers next asserts that he was deprived of a fair trial when the state in closing argument asserted Only if all 12 of you have reasonable doubt as to the guilt of this defendant on aggravated robbery.... Flowers's counsel interrupted the State and asserted that's not what the jury instruction says. Jury instruction number twenty-one provided: If you have reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt on the charge of Aggravated Robbery, you will then consider the charge of robbery. This language is taken directly from AMI Crim.2d 302. Flowers argues that the State's representation of AMI 302 misled the jury into believing that before it could consider the lesser-included offense of robbery, all jurors had to have reasonable doubt on aggravated robbery. This same alleged error and argument is discussed in Boyd v. State, 369 Ark. 259, 253 S.W.3d 456 (2007), where the prosecutor argued at trial that the only way the jury could consider the lesser-included offense of first-degree murder was if all twelve of you decide that he is not guilty of capital murder. Boyd, 369 Ark. at 264, 253 S.W.3d at 460. The court concluded that this was in essence an argument that the word you in AMI 302 was ambiguous. Id. The court in Boyd further held that Boyd failed to preserve the issue for appeal because he did not proffer a jury instruction that he believed correctly stated the law. Likewise, in this case, because Flowers failed to proffer an instruction that corrected the alleged ambiguity, the issue will not be considered on appeal. See Boyd, supra .