Opinion ID: 2640657
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Retreat from Honeycutt

Text: The Honeycutt majority required that the defendant include language that undermines his defense in order to have a reasonable belief of consent instruction given, and to preserve the validity of the issue on direct appeal. Interestingly, we have never placed such an obligation with these consequences upon litigants, and the Honeycutt majority cited no precedent that exacts this burden. [7] Moreover, the defendant in Honeycutt was apparently denied his theory of defense based upon a technical failure to include language that the State easily could have requested. [8] Thus, Honeycutt creates a trap for the unwary that exalts form over substance where a defendant's right to a fair trial is at stake. [9] Carter's instruction likewise omitted the additional language required by Honeycutt. That omission is of interest because Carter was tried after Honeycutt was decided. Defense counsel should have known that the instruction was incomplete and was subject to rejection by the district court. On appeal, without mentioning this defect, Carter simply argues that he was entitled to the shortened version that he presented. We disagree but now retreat from the harsh result mandated under Honeycutt and hold that, when such a proffer is made, the district court must give the complete Honeycutt instruction. Thus, while Carter's proposed instruction omitted material clearly required under Honeycutt, such a proffer should not be per se rejected as incomplete. [10] The majority opinion in Honeycutt suffers from four important vices. First, Honeycutt improperly rejected a theory of defense instruction solely on the ground that the instruction, although legally correct, was an incomplete statement of the law. Second, it improperly implies that a defendant must proffer theory of the defense instructions in sexual assault cases that articulate both defense and prosecution theories. Third, it implies that failure to do so would invalidate theory of the case proffers made in other contexts, such as in murder cases where justifiable homicide is at issue. Fourth, it relieves district courts of the obligation to give complete theory of the case instructions. We therefore further hold that, in general, a defendant is not required to proffer both the defense's and the State's theories of the case to have an instruction given or to preserve error in connection with the proffer for appellate review, [11] and that district courts must give complete and accurate theory of the case instructions even though the instruction requested is viewed as incomplete. Thus, to the extent that Honeycutt is inconsistent with this view, we expressly overturn it. Our ruling today does not mean a defendant in a criminal case is entitled to have an incomplete statement of the law given in a trial court's jury instructions. First, the State may request additional language, e.g., as should have been the case here, the fact that reliance on ambiguous conduct manifesting consent is not reasonable if the conduct is induced by force or fear. Second, the district court should complete the instruction sua sponte or may assist the parties in crafting complete instructions. And, as stated by Justice Rose in his dissent to the Honeycutt majority: If [a] proposed [defense] instruction is poorly drafted, a district court has an affirmative obligation to cooperate with the defendant to correct the proposed instruction or to incorporate the substance of such an instruction in one drafted by the court. [12] Finally, we wish to stress that our retreat from Honeycutt does not mean that district courts must accept misleading, inaccurate or duplicitous jury instructions.