Opinion ID: 2546826
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Proffered Jury Instruction on Victim-Impact Testimony

Text: For his next point, Decay asserts that the circuit court erred by refusing to submit a jury instruction on victim-impact testimony. The State avers that the circuit court properly denied Decay's proffered jury instruction. Our case law is clear that a party is entitled to a jury instruction when it is a correct statement of law and when there is some basis in the evidence to support giving the instruction. See Jones v. State, 336 Ark. 191, 984 S.W.2d 432 (1999). Moreover, a circuit court is required to give a jury instruction if there is some evidence to support it. See id. A circuit court should not use a nonmodel instruction unless it finds that the model instruction does not accurately reflect the law. See id. We will not reverse a circuit court's decision to give or reject an instruction unless the court abused its discretion. See Clark v. State, 374 Ark. 292, 287 S.W.3d 567 (2008). Decay proffered a nonmodel jury instruction to the circuit court that stated, [y]ou shall not consider victim-impact evidence as an aggravating circumstance, but the victim-impact evidence may be considered by you when making your decision. The State argued that the Arkansas Model Jury Instructions (AMI) were sufficient and the circuit court agreed. Decay argues on appeal that juries do not understand the role of victim-impact evidence or how it works in the sentencing scheme and that an additional instruction was needed. However, the instruction proffered by Decay did nothing more than to inform the jury that they may not consider victim-impact evidence as an aggravating circumstance. The instructions given to the jury made that clear. Before the jury was sent to determine Decay's sentence, the circuit judge instructed them on the appropriate forms that they would use and what procedures they were to follow. As part of those instructions, the circuit judge read from AMI Crim.2d 1008 and stated: Form 1, which will be handed to you later, deals with aggravating circumstances. The appearance of any particular aggravating circumstances on the form does not mean that it actually existed in this case. These are specified by law and are the only aggravating circumstances that you may consider. (Emphasis added.) This court has previously held that although a proffered instruction may be a correct statement of the law, it is unnecessary to give it when its substance is covered by other instructions. See Jones, supra . Therefore, the circuit court did not abuse its discretion by finding the model instructions sufficient and refusing to give the proffered instruction.