Opinion ID: 2773040
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the trial court should have instructed the

Text: JURY ON THE REQUIRED MENS REA ¶13 The court of appeals held that the trial court erred by not defining the required mental state for each element of the failure to respond charge under Utah Code section 41-6a-210(1)(a). The failureto-respond statute provides, “An operator who receives a visual or audible signal from a peace officer to bring the vehicle to a stop may not: . . . attempt to flee or elude a peace officer by vehicle or other means.” UTAH CODE § 41-6a-210(1)(a) (emphasis added). The court of appeals explained that the terms “receive” and “attempt” indicate that the offense “incorporates its own set of mental state requirements on which [Mr.] Bird was entitled to a jury instruction.” State v. Bird, 2012 UT App 239, ¶ 15, 286 P.3d 11. It acknowledged that these are common terms, but reasoned that “the criminal law mens rea implications of those terms would [not] necessarily be obvious to a jury.” Id. ¶ 16 n.5. We agree with the court of appeals and hold that the trial court erred in not instructing the jury on the mens rea requirement for the failure-to-respond charge.
Requires an Instruction ¶14 The general rule for jury instructions is that “an accurate instruction upon the basic elements of an offense is essential. Failure 5 STATE v. BIRD Opinion of the Court to so instruct constitutes reversible error.” State v. Bluff, 2002 UT 66, ¶ 26, 52 P.3d 1210 (internal quotation marks omitted). A mens rea element is an “essential element of [an] offense.” State v. Cobo, 60 P.2d 952, 959 (Utah 1936). Thus, failure to instruct the jury as to the required mens rea, when it is an element of the crime, is reversible error. ¶15 A trial court should provide the jury with a mens rea instruction when a criminal statute includes terms that have mens rea implications. In State v. Stringham, 957 P.2d 602, 609 (Utah Ct. App. 1998), for example, the defendant was convicted of communications fraud, but the court of appeals reversed and remanded for a new trial because the trial court failed to instruct the jury on the mens rea element. Id. It explained, “It is too long a reach to suggest the jury divined that defendant had to act intentionally because such a level of volition is inherent in the concept of ‘devis[ing] a scheme.’” Id. (alteration in original). ¶16 Of particular concern is an instruction that leaves the erroneous impression that a crime is one of strict liability, when it in fact contains a mens rea element. In State v. Pearson, the defendant had been convicted of failure to disclose a transaction to a government employer. 1999 UT App 220, ¶ 1, 985 P.2d 919. The court of appeals reversed the conviction, reasoning that “[b]y selectively applying the mens rea to some, but not all, of the elements of the offense, the jury could easily have believed defendant was strictly liable for [the remaining element].” Id. ¶ 12. ¶17 An appropriate jury instruction must also distinguish between the general and specific intent requirements of an offense. State v. Potter, 627 P.2d 75, 78 (Utah 1981). In Potter, we remanded for a new trial “[b]ecause the instructions given . . . failed to explain adequately the distinction between the general and specific intent requirements.” Id. Thus, a trial court must instruct the jury on the proper mens rea for the offense charged. And the instruction must identify the mens rea implicated by the statutory language, must include a mens rea for all elements, and must distinguish between general and specific intent.
¶18 In this case, both parties agree that the failure-to-respond offense includes a mens rea element. Violations of the Utah Traffic Code, such as this, are strict liability offenses “unless specifically provided by law.” UTAH CODE § 76-2-101(2). In this case, however, the terms “receive” and “attempt,” which are contained in the 6 Cite as: 2015 UT 7 Opinion of the Court statutory language, indicate that this crime includes some level of mental appreciation. What the parties dispute is whether a jury instruction that simply lists the statutory elements of the offense is sufficient to alert the jury to the mens rea element. ¶19 The State argues that because the terms “receive” and “attempt” are terms of common usage, it was unnecessary to instruct the jury as to the meaning of these terms. We agree that the jury would have understood the plain meaning of the terms “receive” and “attempt.” But we cannot assume that the jury understood the mens rea implications of these terms. Indeed, mens rea is a “legal term of art” that ought to be explicitly explained to a jury. See State v. Jeffs, 2010 UT 49, ¶ 43, 243 P.3d 1250. ¶20 We can expect a lay juror to understand that the term “receive” contemplates a level of knowledge. See WEBSTER ’S NEW COLLEGE DICTIONARY 1195 (2007) (including among the definitions of “receive,” “to apprehend mentally; get knowledge of or information about”). Therefore, a juror would likely have perceived that the “receives a visual or audible signal from a peace officer” element of the offense requires knowledge of the peace officer’s signal. But we cannot assume that a juror would recognize the significance of this knowledge requirement as an essential mens rea element. Thus, it was error for the trial court not to instruct the jury that the charge included a knowingly mens rea element and define what would satisfy that element. ¶21 The trial court’s error in not including a mens rea instruction is even more apparent in the context of the “attempt to flee or elude a police officer” element. The term “attempt” carries a distinct meaning in criminal law that we cannot expect a lay juror to understand without instruction. The common dictionary definition of attempt is “to try, solicit,” or “to make an effort to do, get, have, etc.” Id. at 91. In contrast, the statutory definition of attempt means something more than to try or make an effort. As explained in Utah Code section 76-4-101(1), attempt means to “engage[] in conduct constituting a substantial step toward commission of the crime” and to “intend[] to commit the crime.” Thus, the statutory meaning of attempt connotes a conscious decision with more specific action than does the common dictionary definition of the term. ¶22 Although the term “attempt” implicates a mental state requirement, it does not necessarily indicate the applicable level of mens rea. For example, the crime of assault, like failure to respond, includes attempt as one of its elements. UTAH CODE § 76-5-102(1) 7 STATE v. BIRD Opinion of the Court (“Assault is . . . an attempt, with unlawful force or violence, to do bodily injury to another . . . .”). But we have explained that the assault statute itself does not prescribe the requisite mental state. State v. Hutchings, 2012 UT 50, ¶ 12, 285 P.3d 1183. In other words, the requisite mens rea is not apparent from the statute’s use of the term “attempt.” Utah Code section 76-2-102 explains that “intent, knowledge, or recklessness shall suffice to establish criminal responsibility” “when the definition of the offense does not specify a culpable mental state and the offense does not involve strict liability.” Thus, intent, knowledge, or recklessness must “be found to establish criminal responsibility” in the context of assault. Id. ¶ 12. ¶23 In the context of the failure-to-respond offense, the “attempt to flee or elude” element implicates an intentional mens rea. To flee or elude means something more than to merely leave or depart; the terms indicate action with a specific purpose. See WEBSTER’S NEW COLLEGE DICTIONARY 540 (2007) (defining “flee” as “to run away or escape”); Id. at 463 (defining “elude” as “to avoid or escape from by quickness, cunning, etc.”). Because the act of fleeing or eluding requires a conscious decision to escape or avoid, one could not recklessly flee from a peace officer. Although a person might act recklessly by departing from a police stop without the police officer’s permission, the person would not be fleeing unless it were his intention to escape or avoid the police officer. To attempt to flee or elude, therefore, requires that the actor leave in an effort to escape or avoid a peace officer. Thus, the trial court should have instructed the jury that an “attempt to flee or elude” requires an intentional mental state. ¶24 In sum, the court of appeals correctly held that the trial court erred in denying Mr. Bird a mens rea jury instruction because the instruction given to the jury did not specify the essential mens rea elements of the failure-to-respond charge.