Opinion ID: 1111326
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: did the court err in refusing to grant instruction d-12?

Text: Edlin assigns as error the trial judge's failure to grant the following instruction: JURY INSTRUCTION D-12 You are instructed that it is the duty of each and every member of the jury in this case to decide the issues presented for himself and if, after a careful consideration of all of the evidence in the case and the instructions of the Court on the law and free consultation with your fellow jurors, there is any single juror who has a reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt it is your duty under oath to stand by your conviction and favorable to a finding of not guilty. You should never yield your conviction simply because every other single one of the jury may disagree with you. The trial judge refused Instruction D-12 and stated, It is covered by the court's instruction. The State concedes that the so called one juror instruction should be granted upon request in proper cases but the State argues that the refusal of the single juror instruction is not error where the principles of that instruction are contained in other instructions. See Mallette v. State, 349 So.2d 546, 550 (Miss. 1977). In Mallette, we addressed the failure to give a one juror instruction and said: Instruction 9-D is the one-juror instruction. This Court has held that, in proper cases, it should be granted. Easter v. State, 191 Miss. 651, 4 So.2d 227 (1941); Cartee v. State, 162 Miss. 263, 139 So. 618 (1932). However, Instruction S-1, although it did not go into length on the principle stated in Instruction 9-D, did instruct the jury that twelve jurors must agree upon the verdict. With that instruction, and considering all instructions together, we are of the opinion that it was not error to refuse Instruction 9-D. Mallette, 349 So.2d at 550. See also, Gearlson v. State, 482 So.2d 1141, 1142 (Miss. 1986). In this case the State contends that the court's instruction which stated: Both the State of Mississippi and the defendant have the right to expect that you will conscientiously consider and weigh the evidence and apply the law of the case and that you will reach a just verdict regardless of what the consequences of such verdict may be. sufficiently instructed the jury in this regard. In this contention the State is wrong and this case is distinguished from Mallette, in that the Edlin jury was never instructed that their verdict must be unanimous. Nothing in the court's instructions remotely resembles the single juror instruction requested by Edlin. Where a jury in a criminal case is not instructed that their verdict must be unanimous, then a single juror instruction is proper and in this case the jury deliberated for an extended period of time without the benefit of either instruction. Therefore, the failure to grant the single juror instruction under these circumstances is reversible error.