Opinion ID: 220080
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Jury Instruction Regarding Trespass

Text: Wisecarver argues that Jury Instruction No. 8 prejudiced the jury against his theory of defense by instructing that Bourne was not a trespasser. We review the district court's decisions with respect to jury instructions for abuse of discretion, affirming if the entire charge to the jury, when read as a whole, fairly and adequately contains the law applicable to the case. United States v. Webster, 442 F.3d 1065, 1067 (8th Cir.2006) (quoting United States v. Sdoulam, 398 F.3d 981, 993 (8th Cir. 2005)). [W]e will reverse only if we find that an instructional error was prejudicial to the defendant. Id. Jury Instruction No. 8 stated: A BIA employee who goes upon private property in the performance of his duty is not a trespasser. The general rule is that conduct otherwise a trespass is often justifiable by reason of authority vested in the person who does the act, as, for example, an officer of the law acting in the performance of a duty. The instruction, based on South Dakota Pattern Jury Instruction (Criminal) 2-9-11, is an accurate statement of the law. Because the first paragraph of the underlying South Dakota pattern instruction refers to an officer of the law. . . investigating a crime, rather than to a government official in general, Wisecarver argues that South Dakota applies this justification for trespass only to police officers investigating a crime. However, the second paragraph of the South Dakota instruction, incorporated verbatim as the second paragraph of Instruction No. 8 in this case, makes clear that an officer of the law acting in the performance of a duty is just one example of a general rule that applies to conduct justifiable by reason of authority vested in the person who does the act. Here, Bourne's presence on the land was justified to the extent he was acting within the scope of the authority vested in him by the majority landholder through the lease application. Therefore, Instruction No. 8 accurately applies the justification for trespass set forth in the South Dakota pattern jury instruction to this case. Wisecarver also challenges the instruction on the basis that Bourne's actual status [as a non-trespasser] was not relevant. A legally accurate but irrelevant jury instruction may be error to the extent it misleads the jury. Cf. Housing 21, L.L.C. v. Atl. Home Builders Co., 289 F.3d 1050, 1055 (8th Cir.2002) (finding reversible error where, in response to a question from a deliberating jury, the district court provided an answer that, while correct, nevertheless directed the jury to factual information that was not relevant to the jury's determination); United States v. Wadena, 152 F.3d 831, 855 (8th Cir.1998) (holding that a challenged jury instruction was not irrelevant and thus was not in error). We agree with Wisecarver that Instruction No. 8 addressed an irrelevant issue. While Instruction No. 6 allowed the jury to find that Wisecarver's rifle shot was justified if Wisecarver reasonably believed that Bourne was a trespasser, no element of Wisecarver's theory of defense (or of the depredation charge) depended on Bourne's actual status as a trespasser. [2] Nevertheless, we find that Instruction No. 8, even if erroneous due to its potentially misleading nature, did not prejudice Wisecarver. See Webster, 442 F.3d at 1067. Although Wisecarver told the jury that he initially was angered by Bourne's allegedly unlawful presence on the land and the perceived threat to his horses, Wisecarver never testified that he contemplated firing the rifle at the truck based on those factors. Instead, Wisecarver testified that he decided to shoot the truck solely to prevent Bourne from driving it into him. The jury was accurately instructed regarding Wisecarver's claim of justification by Instruction No. 7, which stated in relevant part: If a person reasonably believes that force is necessary to protect himself from what he reasonably believes to be unlawful physical harm about to be inflicted by another and uses such force, then he acted in self defense. If the jury accepted Wisecarver's testimony that the rifle shot was necessary because Bourne was threatening to run over him, the jury was free to exonerate Wisecarver under Instruction No. 7, without regard to the issues of trespass addressed in Instruction Nos. 6 and 8. See United States v. Paul, 217 F.3d 989, 997 (8th Cir.2000) ([J]ury instructions are evaluated in the context of the entire charge and a jury is presumed to follow all instructions.). Moreover, we find it highly unlikely that Instruction No. 8, without more, could mislead the jury into believing that the right to defend oneself from being run over by a truck would vanish simply because the driver had authorization to be on the property. Because Wisecarver suffered no prejudice from the challenged instruction, we hold that any error in the instruction was harmless. See United States v. O'Hagan, 139 F.3d 641, 653 (8th Cir.1998).