Opinion ID: 1447881
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Jury Instruction on Discrepancies in Testimony

Text: The trial court gave the jury CALJIC No. 2.20 (1980 rev.) (4th ed. 1984 cum. pocket pt., p. 8), which told the jury it could properly consider the witnesses' prior consistent and inconsistent statements, and anything that has a tendency in reason to prove or disprove the truthfulness of the testimony of a witness. (14) Defendant claims the trial court had a sua sponte duty to instruct the jury in the terms of the second paragraph of the then-current version of CALJIC No. 2.21 (4th ed. 1979 bound vol.) At the time of trial, the instruction read: A witness willfully false in one material part of his testimony is to be distrusted in others. You may reject the whole testimony of a witness who willfully has testified falsely as to a material point, unless, from all the evidence, you shall believe the probability of truth favors his testimony in other particulars. [ถ] However, discrepancies in a witness' testimony or between his testimony and that of others, if there were any, do not necessarily mean that the witness should be discredited. Failure of recollection is a common experience; and innocent misrecollection is not uncommon. It is a fact, also, that two persons witnessing an incident or a transaction often will see or hear it differently. Whether a discrepancy pertains to a fact of importance or only to a trivial detail should be considered in weighing its significance. [5] Defendant contends the inconsistencies between his statements to the police that were admitted at trial and his trial testimony required the trial judge to instruct the jury on its own motion in the terms of the second paragraph of the instruction at issue. We disagree. The requirement that the trial court give sua sponte instructions applies only to those instructions that are `necessary for the jury's understanding of the case.' ( People v. Wickersham (1982) 32 Cal.3d 307, 323 [185 Cal. Rptr. 436, 650 P.2d 311]; accord, People v. Price, supra, 1 Cal.4th at p. 442.) As noted above, the jury was given CALJIC No. 2.20, which told the jury it could properly consider the witnesses' prior consistent and inconsistent statements, and anything that has a tendency in reason to prove or disprove the truthfulness of the testimony of a witness. We conclude that, under the circumstances of this case, the trial court gave the jury the instructions that were necessary to evaluate the testimony of the witnesses, including defendant. The jury was adequately instructed.