Opinion ID: 2576322
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Timing of the Jury Instructions

Text: ¶ 23 Having disposed of Cruz's attack on the substance of the reasonable doubt instructions, we now turn to his claim that the trial court erred by failing to reread its preliminary instructions at the close of the evidence. As was the case with his argument regarding the sufficiency of the reasonable doubt instructions, Cruz failed to preserve this issue. Unlike the challenge to the reasonable doubt instructions, however, this issue does not implicate the structural error doctrine. ¶ 24 In Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 117 S.Ct. 1544, 137 L.Ed.2d 718, the United States Supreme Court observed that it had found such errors only in a very limited class of cases. Id. at 468, 117 S.Ct. 1544. It then listed the instances in which it had found structural errors. Id. While the list included erroneous reasonable doubt instructions, it did not include erroneous timing of jury instructions. Id. at 468-69, 117 S.Ct. 1544. Moreover, Cruz has provided us no compelling reason to add to that list. We therefore review the timing of the trial court's jury instructions for plain error, which will require Cruz to prove that the trial court committed an error that was both obvious and prejudicial. See Casey, 2003 UT 55 at ¶ 40, 82 P.3d 1106. ¶ 25 Cruz's argument, as we see it, has both an abstract and a specific component. In the abstract, he argues that reading all of the jury instructions at the close of evidence crystallizes relevant issues and better equips juries to properly resolve cases. In the context of this particular case, Cruz argues that the evidence linking him to the house where the meth lab was seized was hotly contested and that rereading the jury instructions at the close of evidence would have made it clear to the jury that there was insufficient evidence to convict. [3] He asserts that the trial court's failure to reread the instructions was prejudicial and denied him due process. ¶ 26 We also addressed this issue in Reyes. There, we held that Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure 17 and 19 gave trial courts discretion to determine the appropriate instructions to deliver to the jury at the close of evidence. Reyes, 2005 UT 33 at ¶¶ 45, 49. We accordingly declined to require that trial courts reread preliminary instructions at the close of the evidence in every case, recognizing instead that a jury's understanding may be aided by allowing trial courts, in their discretion, to tailor the timing of particular jury instructions to the individual circumstances of a particular case. Id. at ¶¶ 44-45. Requiring a trial court to reread introductory instructions that have become irrelevant by the close of evidence (like those describing jurors' ability to take notes during trial), or even requiring a trial court to reread instructions pertaining to vital rights, id. at ¶¶ 44, 46, when those instructions have recently been given, may dilute [the jury's] attention to critical substantive and procedural guidance present in other instructions, id. at ¶ 44. In short, repeating every instruction at the close of all of the evidence may not necessarily produce better-informed jurors, and our trial courts should have the discretion to decide when rereading instructions will yield diminishing returns. ¶ 27 A trial court's decision not to reread its preliminary instructions at the close of evidence is erroneous only if it reflects an abuse of discretion. We have defined an abuse of discretion generally as a judicial act occurring beyond the range of discretion allowed for the particular act under review, State v. Mead, 2001 UT 58, ¶ 33 n. 4, 27 P.3d 1115, but we have not yet had the opportunity to delineate the applicable range of discretion for the timing of jury instructions. Nevertheless, Reyes is again instructive. ¶ 28 In Reyes, we found that two facts justified the trial court's decision not to reread its preliminary instructions at the close of evidence. First, we noted that less than twenty-four hours separated the trial court's reading of the preliminary instructions from the conclusion of the evidence. Reyes, 2005 UT 33 at ¶ 49. Second, we recognized that the jury was provided with a written copy of every instruction. Id. Given those facts, we concluded that the trial court's decision was well within the bounds of discretion afforded by rule 17 and rule 19 [of the Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure]. Id. In other words, declining to reread preliminary instructions after a one-day trial in which the jurors were provided with written copies of all the instructions fell within the range of discretion trial courts may exercise in timing their jury instructions. ¶ 29 The facts in this case do not differ materially from those in Reyes. The trial court finished reading the first ten preliminary instructions to the jury at 12:20 p.m. on the first day of trial. Instructions 11 through 18 were read on the second day of trial. By 12:48 p.m. on the third day of trial, the jury had gone to deliberate, having received all the instructions. In other words, the trial court gave all the instructions in just over forty-eight hours. While that is twice as long as the relevant period in Reyes, it is still sufficiently short to allow the jury to retain and recall all the instructions it received throughout the course of the trial. Moreover, as in Reyes, each juror had a written copy of the preliminary instructions. [4] Consequently, we hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in declining to reread all the instructions at the close of evidence. Accordingly, Cruz cannot establish any error, let alone plain error, with regard to the timing of the jury instructions.