Opinion ID: 853629
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Confusing Instructions

Text: The defendant argues that the trial court's instructions to the jury on the lesser-included offenses of involuntary manslaughter and reckless homicide were confusing, improper, and deficient. During the conference regarding final instructions, the trial court and the parties extensively discussed the wording of the jury instructions explaining reckless homicide and involuntary manslaughter. The process resulted in the trial court giving the defendant's tendered instructions numbers 1 and 4 as modified, and the defense withdrawing its proposed instructions numbers 2, 3, and 5. After a recess to permit the instructions to be prepared in final form and reviewed by counsel, the court reconvened and asked if there were any objections. Each of the defendant's two lawyers separately declared that she had no objection. Because a defendant who fails to object to an instruction at trial waives any challenge to that instruction on appeal, T.R. 51(C); Ford, 704 N.E.2d at 461, we find that the defendant waived this claim. Attempting to avoid procedural default, the defendant argues that the court's failure to explain the differences in the mens rea required for the various offenses constituted fundamental error. Citing Clark v. State, 668 N.E.2d 1206, 1210 (Ind.1996), and Jackson v. State, 575 N.E.2d 617, 621 (Ind.1991), the defendant urges that fundamental error occurs when a trial court improperly or insufficiently explains the differences in mens rea. Unlike the present case, both Clark and Jackson involved attempted murder, and neither addressed a claim of fundamental error for failing to explain the difference in the mens rea required for various offenses. In Clark, this Court reversed an attempted murder conviction, holding that, because the trial court's instruction for attempted murder allowed conviction on knowingly and did not require intent to kill, the trial court's correct statement in its general instructions could not cure this erroneous instruction. Clark, 668 N.E.2d at 1210. In Jackson, the defendant, who was convicted of attempted murder, challenged a jury instruction that the defendant claimed failed to require the finding of proof beyond a reasonable doubt of specific intent to commit murder, but this Court refused to find fundamental error. Jackson, 575 N.E.2d at 620-21. This Court views the fundamental error exception to the waiver rule as an extremely narrow one, available only `when the record reveals clearly blatant violations of basic and elementary principles [of due process], and the harm or potential for harm [can]not be denied.' Ford, 704 N.E.2d at 461 (quoting Warriner, 435 N.E.2d at 563). We find no fundamental error.