Opinion ID: 405240
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Taped Instructions

Text: 77 The appellants charge error in the court's sending of a tape recording of his instructions to the jury room. Submission of written instructions is within the sound discretion of the court. Stephens v. United States, 347 F.2d 722, 725 (5th Cir.) cert. denied, 382 U.S. 932, 86 S.Ct. 324, 15 L.Ed.2d 343 (1965); United States v. Hill, 589 F.2d 1344, 1352 (8th Cir. 1974); United States v. Silvern, 484 F.2d 879 (7th Cir. 1973). The recent holding of the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Watson, 669 F.2d 1374, (5th Cir. 1982), affirmed the extension of this practice to tape recorded versions of jury instructions. It carefully distinguished the prior case of United States v. Schilleci, 545 F.2d 519 (5th Cir. 1977), in which submission of written instructions constituted reversible error because of the court's overemphasis of isolated parts of the charges. By contrast, the trial judge in Watson clearly and specifically instructed the jury to follow all the instructions as a whole. 78 Unlike Schilleci, this jury was adequately informed that the whole charge must be considered in reaching their verdict. Against that background, the judge's further instruction regarding use of the tape recorder was not prejudicial. 79 Id., at 1386. 80 The holding and reasoning of Watson apply with equal force to the case at bar, where the district court carefully and repeatedly instructed the jury to consider all the instructions as a whole, giving no particular emphasis to any one portion. Having shown no prejudice ensuing from implementation of this practice, we reject the appellants' challenge as meritless.