Opinion ID: 1489448
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: General Inadequacy of Jury Instructions

Text: This ground for appeal is, at best, a makeweight argument. Appellants' brief states that the instructions provided at trial essentially [gave] the jury no legal direction at all. Appellants cite no specific deficiencies or problems with the jury instructions and instead make only broad assertions of error. They ask that we overrule Cox v. Cooper, 510 S.W.2d 530 (Ky.1974), which held that jury instructions should provide only the bare bones, which can be fleshed out by counsel in their closing arguments if they so desire. Id. at 535 (emphasis added). Cox is not alone, however, and is buttressed by a long line of Kentucky cases which call for a substantially similar approach. See, e.g., Meyers v. Chapman Printing Co., 840 S.W.2d 814 (Ky.1992); Rogers v. Kasdan, 612 S.W.2d 133 (Ky.1981); King v. Grecco, 111 S.W.3d 877 (Ky.App.2002). The instructions provided to the jury in this case were clearly adequate under Kentucky's established standard. Furthermore, Appellants' failure to cite any specific deficiency or to provide any more than a general objection to the practice of bare bones instructions gives us no reason to depart from our time-tested method of instructing juries.