Opinion ID: 1846433
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Read Back of Testimony

Text: The Jury Innovations Committee recommended that the Court develop specific criteria for the denial of a juror request to read back portions of the trial testimony. However, in its response to this recommendation, the Civil Procedure Rules Committee declined to propose a rule on this subject, correctly pointing out that current Florida case law gives trial judges broad discretion in deciding whether to read back testimony. See, e.g., Francis v. State, 808 So.2d 110, 130 (Fla.2001) (finding no abuse of discretion where trial court told jury that reading back of testimony would take three hours and then left it up to the jury to decide); State v. Riechmann, 777 So.2d 342 (Fla.2000); Henry v. State, 649 So.2d 1361, 1365 (Fla.1994); Miller v. State, 605 So.2d 492, 495 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992) (finding no abuse of discretion where court reporter did not have her notes with her); DeCastro v. State, 360 So.2d 474 (Fla. 3d DCA 1978) (finding no abuse of discretion where it was not practical because testimony was extensive and court reporter was physically exhausted). We conclude that trial judges should continue to have broad discretion in denying read-back requests. Accordingly, we decline to adopt any rule in this respect. We do, however, authorize the publication and use of new civil and criminal jury instructions addressing the read-back of testimony. New standard civil instruction 7.3(b) provides a framework for acknowledging and either granting, deferring, or denying a jury's request for a read-back of testimony. For use in criminal trials, we authorize an identical criminal instruction, new standard criminal instruction 4.4.