Court Opinion

ID: 9478392
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:48:01.673828+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:24.583351
License: Public Domain

BEAM, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The responses to questions afforded the jury by the trial court were accurate and nonprejudicial when all the instructions and answers by the court are considered.
Instruction 20 given by the trial judge read as follows:
The verdict must represent the considered judgment of each juror. In order to return a verdict, it is necessary that each juror agree thereto. Your verdict must be unanimous.
It is your duty as jurors to consult with one another, and to deliberate with a view toward reaching an agreement, if you can do so without violence to individual judgment. Each of you must decide the case for yourself, but do so only after an impartial consideration of the evidence in the case with your fellow jurors. In the course of your deliberations, do not hesitate to reexamine your own views and change your opinion, if you are convinced it is erroneous. But do not surrender your honest conviction as to the weight or effect of evidence, solely because of the opinion of your fellow jurors, or for the mere purpose of returning a verdict.
Remember at all times, you are not partisans. You are judges — judges of the facts. Your sole interest is to seek the truth from the evidence in the case.
This instruction along with the submitted verdict form properly set forth the result-oriented options available to the jury. The various notes from the jury during deliberations dealt with how to use the verdict form to return a verdict with less than unanimous support for the outcome. This, of course, could not be done. The responses by the judge reiterated the need for any verdict to be agreeable to all jurors and urged them to continue with their deliberations, if necessary. Thus, the judge’s answers were to the point, accurate and proper and the case should be affirmed.