Opinion ID: 415739
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Jury Instructions Were Improper.

Text: 18 In reviewing jury instructions, the court must consider whether the instructions as a whole were misleading or inadequate to guide the jury's determination. Stoker v. United States, 587 F.2d 438, 440 (9th Cir.1978). As previously discussed, the only offense in which the judge instructed the jury was forcible assault. Therefore, since he also read the indictment to the jury, the instructions as a whole were both conflicting and misleading in that the instructions erroneously described the offense charged in the indictment and failed to guide the jury on the offense which was charged. [A] conviction should not rest on ambiguous and equivocal instructions to the jury on a basic issue. United States v. Bagby, 451 F.2d 920, 927 (9th Cir.1971), citing Bollenbach v. United States, 326 U.S. 607, 613, 66 S.Ct. 402, 405, 90 L.Ed. 350 (1946). 19 Although Pazsint timely objected to only two of the instructions on the ground that he had not been charged by the grand jury with assault, the instructions as a whole may be reviewed here because there was plain error. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(b). The instructions only permitted the jury to determine the defendant's guilt or innocence of a crime not charged in the indictment, and this was plain error since [t]he court may not substantially amend the indictment through its instructions to the jury. United States v. Stewart Clinical Laboratory, Inc., 652 F.2d at 807; see also United States v. Edwards, 465 F.2d 943, 950 (9th Cir.1982); Edgerton v. United States, 143 F.2d at 698. In the Ninth Circuit it is well established that erroneous instructions are cause for reversal, even absent defendant's timely objection, if plain error affecting substantial rights of the defendant occurred. United States v. Bagby, 451 F.2d at 927; see also United States v. Harvey, 428 F.2d 782, 783 n. 1 (9th Cir.1970). Here the instructions destroyed the defendant's substantial right to be tried only on charges presented in an indictment returned by a grand jury, Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. at 217, 80 S.Ct. at 273, and therefore are cause for reversal. 20