Opinion ID: 2160499
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Jury Instruction on Credibility of Alleged Victim

Text: The trial court gave the following jury instruction offered by the State, over the objections of the Defense: In order for the Defendant to be convicted of the offense charged in the indictment, it is not necessary that the testimony of the victim be corroborated by other witnesses. It is sufficient if you find her testimony credible beyond a reasonable doubt. During settling of the jury instructions, the Defense asked if this was a stock instruction. The State replied that it was not, but that it was from the case of State v. Willis, and the trial court indicated that it had checked the citation. It was the Defense position that this instruction was misleading, placed too much weight on the testimony of A.S., and was unnecessary since there was already a jury instruction regarding the credibility of the witnesses. Authority for this jury instruction cannot be located in either Willis case. See Willis I, 370 N.W.2d at 193; Willis II, 396 N.W.2d at 152. SDCL 15-6-51(b) on settlement of jury instructions states in part that, It shall be insufficient to state generally that an instruction does or does not state the law, but it shall be necessary to specify clearly wherein any instruction, or part thereof objected to, is insufficient or does not state the law. Id. (emphasis added). Counsel offering jury instructions, both defense and prosecution, should be prepared to offer the specific authority on which a proposed instruction is based. This allows a more fair and full discussion of proposed jury instructions, and aids the court in reaching decisions whether to accept or reject the instructions. In regard to the present case, we have stated that as a general rule, it is not essential to a sexual offense conviction that the testimony of the victim be corroborated by other evidence. State v. Blalack, 434 N.W.2d 55, 59 (S.D.1988) (citing State v. Grey Owl, 316 N.W.2d 801, 804 (S.D.1982)). Based on these prior holdings, the language contained in the first sentence of the instruction is appropriate. No authority is located to support the second sentence of the instruction, which is not even clear or complete on its facesufficient for what? Therefore, the language of the second sentence of the instruction should properly be deleted.