Court Opinion

ID: 9747619
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:24:02.022317+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:24.900757
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING STATEMENT BY
KLEIN, J.:
¶ 1 I fully join in all that is said by my esteemed colleague, President Judge Emeritus McEwen. I agree that the way the charge was read, there was a likelihood of jury confusion. It is possible that the jury thought that even without serious bodily injury resulting, aggravated assault could be caused recklessly, which is not the law.
¶ 2 I wish to add that a trial judge does not necessarily discharge his or her obligation merely by reading the draft standard charge verbatim. Numerous studies show that jurors fail to comprehend a large portion of the instructions on the law under the best of circumstances. In a lengthy article in the Yale Law and Policy Review, Connecticut Assistant Attorney General Drury Stevenson stated, “[I]t makes little sense to have a jury at all if the jury cannot receive its directives in terms the jurors comprehend.” To Whom is the Law Addressed? 21 Yale L. & Pol’y. Rev. 105 (Winter 2003).
¶ 8 There is a general reluctance to deviate from the legalese of the statutory definitions of crimes, which I believe is hi advised. The eminent trial advocacy and legal writing professor James W. McElha-ney, Joseph C. Hostetler Professor of Trial Practice and Advocacy at Case Western Reserve School of Law wrote a much shorter but pithy article on Plain English and jury instructions in the American Bar Association Journal. He asked, “But if jury instructions are intended for regular people and not lawyers, why give them in Legal instead of English?” When Jurors’ Eyes Glaze Over, They’re Telliny you Something, 81 A.B.A. J. 91 (Nov.1995). He quoted Professor Stephen A. Saltzburg of George Washington University National Law Center for the answer. Professor Saltzburg attributed the answer to the fear of reversal, saying, “That’s why judges are loath to use anything except the traditional language. They use the words of the statute rather than try to explain what the law really means.”
¶ 4 Until the draft standard instructions are translated into Plain English from legalese, trial judges should make sure the standard explanations can be understood. They certainly should avoid the confusion that will result if extraneous and irrelevant portions of the standard charge are merely read to the jury without a simplified explanation.