Opinion ID: 783616
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Specificity of the Instruction

Text: 26 Hakim also argues that the District Court's instruction was too vague to ensure that the jury would disregard the testimony about his drug use. Rather than directly telling the jury to ignore any statements about Hakim's drug use, the Court chose to describe Gray's testimony only indirectly: 27 You'll recall that during the course of the Government's redirect examination of Mr. Gray, reference was made by the Government to a statement that Mr. Gray had made to Detective Emrich concerning the defendant's conduct. 28 [A469-70]. 29 The government argues that for a number of reasons the District Court's decision not to refer directly to the drug use testimony was not error. First, the government asserts that because the District Judge was actually able to see the jury, he was in a good position to gauge whether the jurors understood the reference to Hakim's conduct. Second, the government submits that the District Court purposefully declined to use the word drugs in its instruction because it did not want to cause Hakim further prejudice by explicitly repeating the testimony. Third, the government points out that Hakim's counsel did not object to the phrasing of the instruction, a fact which suggests that counsel agreed with the Judge's approach and believed the jury understood what the Judge was referring to. 30 We do not think that the instruction was impermissibly vague. The District Judge was discussing testimony that had been heard mere minutes earlier and was in a much better position than this Court to determine whether the jury understood what he was referring to. At all events, based on the transcript, the object of the Court's reference seems clear, and we cannot say that the content of the instruction amounted to plain error. 31