Opinion ID: 3201085
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Modification of the Proposed Jury Instruction

Text: Appellant also contends that the trial court erred by failing to modify his draft instruction on its own initiative by adding “after 2:00 p.m.” Perhaps the 10 proposed instruction could have been modified to make it legally accurate. In fact, the court did state, during the discussion, that “[t]he best you can say is . . . the government can‟t prove that he wouldn‟t have appeared after two o’clock if his lawyer hadn‟t told him not to bother,” (emphasis added), which is precisely what appellant is now requesting. However, defense counsel never asked the trial court to modify the instruction in that way, or any other, merely requesting that the original formulation “be made part of the record.” Our rules oblige the parties to play an active role in proposing, objecting to, and clarifying instructions. See Super. Ct. Crim. R. 30. Nevertheless, in Whitaker v. United States, 617 A.2d 499 (D.C. 1992), we endorsed the view that “even a request for an instruction which is not entirely perfect may in some situations impose upon the court the duty to give a more specific instruction on an issue” if it is necessary to assist the jury in making its decision intelligently. Id. at 507-08 (alteration and internal quotation marks omitted) (supp. op. on reh‟g). There are limits to that duty, however. See Zeledon v. United States, 770 A.2d 972, 976 (D.C. 2001). For example, “a [trial] court is not required to rewrite an improper instruction to capture a kernel that may have some validity.” Pannu v. Jacobson, 909 A.2d 178, 198 (D.C. 2006) (alteration in original) (citation omitted). 11 To transform appellant‟s instruction into an accurate statement of the law that would not distract or mislead the jury, the court would have had to fashion a multipart substitute. A balanced instruction would have needed to incorporate two theories: first, that appellant‟s failure to appear after 2:00 p.m. was not willful because he was acting on advice of counsel (perhaps a “kernel” with “some validity”); and second, a more pertinent, but vague, explanation why his failure to appear as required at 11:00 a.m. was not willful. In this situation, where the proffered instruction was so far off the mark, the trial court was not required to rewrite it. Importantly, the trial court did not restrict appellant‟s argument about his lack of willfulness, and even encouraged counsel to argue just that. In fact, almost all of defense counsel‟s closing argument maintained that the government failed to prove willfulness: “It was Ms. King who told him, [i]f you can‟t get here by two, come on Monday. . . . Ms. King has explained . . . that she and her investigator babied him because of the issues he had with coming to court. And in th[ese] circumstances, we submit, . . . that was not wil[l]ful.” The jury obviously did not find the argument persuasive. 12