Court Opinion

ID: 9725584
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:54:52.630456+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:16.818034
License: Public Domain

*136BROWN (G. A.), P. J. I dissent.
This case is being reversed upon the tenuous ground that the jury was not instructed that to return a verdict of guilty it had to find defendant knew he was involved in the accident. There is no question that to find a person guilty of felony hit-and-run driving it is essential that the driver knows that he was involved in an accident. My disagreement comes with the conclusion of the principal opinion that the jury did not receive adequate instructions on this concept.
It is elemental that instructions must be viewed and construed in a common sense manner and as a whole, and as said in Westover v. City of Los Angeles (1941) 20 Cal.2d 635, 637 [128 P.2d 350], “[i]f they harmonize as a whole and fairly and accurately state the law, a reversal may not be had because of verbal inaccuracies, or because a separate instruction does not contain all of the elements which are to be gathered from the instructions as a whole.” (See also McShane v. Cleaver (1966) 247 Cal.App.2d 260, 265-266 [55 Cal.Rptr. 427].) As CALJIC No. 1.01 states in pertinent part, the jurors “.. . are not to single out any certain sentence or any individual point or instruction and ignore the others,” nor should this court. Further, “[s]ince jurors are presumed to possess ordinary intelligence and to be capable of understanding the meaning and use of words in their common and ordinary application, the trial judge is not required to define simple words and phrases employed in an instruction.” (Pobor v. Western Pac. R. R. Co. (1961) 55 Cal.2d 314, 323 [11 Cal.Rptr. 106, 359 P.2d474].)
Applying these principles to the case at hand, it is manifest that the word “know” is in common use and that every third grader knows what it means. To say the court had to specifically define it would be a type of esoteric pedantry with which the courts, dealing as they do with the practical affairs of men, should not trifle.
Thus the jury herein was instructed, “[t]he driver of any vehicle knowingly involved in an accident resulting in injury to any person . . . .” (CALJIC No. 12.70; italics added.) Further, the jurors were told that “[t]he word ‘involved,’ as used in this instruction, means being connected with an accident in a natural or logical manner.” (CALJIC No. 12.70.) In addition, they were instructed in the language of CALJIC No. 12.73 that “[t]he duties imposed by the law upon the driver of a vehicle who knows that he just has been involved in an accident which has resulted in death or injury to any person,.. .” (Italics added.)
*137It is inconceivable that any juror could have construed these instructions to mean anything other than that the driver must have been aware of his involvement.
It is true that in a separate paragraph the word “knowingly” was defined as meaning that the driver knows that an accident had happened and that it resulted in injury, omitting any. reference to knowing of his own involvement. However, this deficiency was clearly made up in other instructions, for, as has been noted, the instructions must be construed in a common sense manner and “a reversal may not be had because of verbal inaccuracies, or because a separate instruction does not contain all of the elements which are to be gathered from the instructions as a whole.” (Westover v. City of Los Angeles, supra, 20 Cal.2d at p. 637.)
I would affirm the judgment.