Court Opinion

ID: 9559384
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:28:02.943731+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:50.545232
License: Public Domain

FIDEL, Judge,
concurring.
I join entirely in the opinion of Judge Noyes. I write separately to add this comment. The lead opinion offers some suggestions for drafting a clear and neutral instruction on premeditation. A guidepost to such an effort may be found in our State Bar’s recently published Revised Arizona Jury Instructions (Civil), Third Edition. In a prefatory note to that addition, the Civil Jury Instructions Committee . identified these drafting objectives, among others:
1. “RAJI instructions are designed to be neutral, brief, and simply worded.”
2. “The Committee has intentionally left out routinely requested argumentative instructions and those which explore overly detailed rules of law.”
3. “Requested jury instructions selectively quoting from appellate court opinions seldom are helpful, nor do they generally reflect the kind of language best adapted to jury instructions.”
4. “[The Committee has rejected] instructions which fit nearly argumentative, narrow, and particularized statements of law, whether they favor plaintiffs or defendants.”
RAJI (Civil) 3d (1997), Statement of Purpose and Approach.
These principles should apply equally to criminal as to civil jury instructions. RAJI Criminal 11.051 violates each of them. The *73new civil instructions are put forward as “clear but terse statements of law.” Id., Introduction to the Third Edition. RAJI 11.051, which is neither, should be redrafted in that mode.