Opinion ID: 852819
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jury Instruction Highlights Refusal

Text: Indiana's implied consent laws require a person to submit to each chemical test offered by a law enforcement officer who has probable cause to believe that person operated a vehicle while intoxicated. Ind. Code Ann. § 9-30-6-2(a)(d) (West 2004). If that person refuses to submit to a chemical test, then the refusal is admissible into evidence in a subsequent proceeding for operating while intoxicated. Ind.Code Ann. § 9-30-6-3(b) (West 2004). Ham's sole contention on appeal is that instruction number ten (A [D]efendant's refusal to submit to a chemical test may be considered as evidence of intoxication) misleads the jury by unnecessarily emphasizing a specific piece of evidence. (Appellant's Br. at 4). Two panels of the Court of Appeals have agreed. See Schmidt v. State, 816 N.E.2d 925, 932-33 (Ind.Ct.App. 2004); Stoltmann v. State, 793 N.E.2d 275, 280 (Ind.Ct.App.2003) (error to instruct that refusal is evidence of guilt). Two other panels have held the opposite. See Luckhart v. State, 780 N.E.2d 1165, 1168-69 (Ind.Ct.App.2003) (instruction that refusal was evidence of guilt not error, but instruction probably should have used intoxication instead of guilt); Hurt v. State, 553 N.E.2d 1243, 1249 (Ind.Ct.App. 1990) (instruction that refusal was evidence of guilt not erroneous). Instructing a jury is a matter assigned to trial court discretion, and an abuse of that discretion occurs when the instructions as a whole, mislead the jury as to the law in the case. Carter v. State, 766 N.E.2d 377, 382 (Ind.2002). Instructions that unnecessarily emphasize one particular evidentiary fact, witness, or phase of the case have long been disapproved. Ludy v. State, 784 N.E.2d 459, 461 (Ind.2003) (citing Fehlman v. State, 199 Ind. 746, 755, 161 N.E. 8, 11 (1928)). We first observe that Indiana Code § 9-30-6-3 only says that a refusal is admissible into evidence, not that it is evidence of intoxication. Judge Baker was correct to say that such evidence is probative only to explain to the jury why there were no chemical test results. Ham, 810 N.E.2d at 1154. Secondly, Hatfield testified about his entire encounter with Ham from the moment he first spotted her until he booked her in jail, but his testimony about her refusal to submit to a chemical test was the only part of his testimony the court highlighted in the instruction. Whether a defendant's refusal to submit to a chemical test is evidence of intoxication or merely that the defendant refused to take the test is for the lawyers to argue and the jury to decide. An instruction from the bench one way or the other misleads the jury by unnecessarily emphasizing one evidentiary fact. See, e.g. Dill v. State, 741 N.E.2d 1230, 1232-33 (Ind.2001) ([A]lthough evidence of flight may, under appropriate circumstances, be relevant, admissible, and a proper subject for counsel's closing argument, it does not follow that a trial court should give a discrete instruction highlighting such evidence.) The contrary holdings of Luckhart, 780 N.E.2d at 1168-69, and Hurt, 553 N.E.2d at 1249, are disapproved.