Court Opinion

ID: 9581288
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:13:21.88657+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:49.960703
License: Public Domain

Bell, Justice,
concurring.
I fully concur in the opinion of this court. I write this concurrence to note that I would abolish the jury instruction on flight in criminal cases. The charge serves no real purpose, as it is a particularization of the general charge on circumstantial evidence, and as the state is free to use circumstantial evidence of flight to argue the defendant’s guilt. For instance, here, the state could have argued to the jury that it could infer Cameron’s guilt from the evidence that Cameron left the scene of the crime in the victim’s car and assumed the victim’s identity. Moreover, the charge inevitably carries with it the potential of being interpreted by the jury as an intimation of opinion by the court that there is evidence of flight and that the circumstances of flight imply the guilt of the defendant; this is especially *228true since the trial court does not give specific charges on other circumstances from which guilt or innocence may be inferred.
Decided July 11, 1986
Reconsideration denied July 30, 1986.
Allen R. Hirons, for appellant.
Thomas J. Charron, District Attorney, Debra H. Bernes, Nicolette S. Tempter, Assistant District Attorneys, Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, Eddie Snelling, Jr., Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
In my experience as a trial and appellate judge I have found most jury instructions to be overlong and abstruse. We should shorten criminal charges by eliminating the instruction on flight which, while it may be technically correct, is nevertheless unnecessary.
I am authorized to state that Justice Weltner and Justice Hunt join in this concurrence.