Court Opinion

ID: 9743740
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:41:57.249977+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:42.952883
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
DeBruler, J.
I find that I must disagree with the opinion of the majority in this case and I therefore dissent.
While the majority acknowledges that IC 1971, 35-1-35-1, being Burns § 9-1805, divides the responsibility of providing instructions in criminal trials between the trial court and the attorneys involved in the trial, it has failed in its opinion to enunciate on what grounds the responsibility is divided. The statute says that the trial court bears the responsibility of instructing on, “all matters of law which are necessary for their information in giving a verdict”. (Emphasis added.) Burns § 9-1805 (5). Attorneys, on the other hand, are required to submit any “special instructions” they wish to be read to the jury in addition to the necessary ones. Burns § 9-1805(6).
*69It is apparent from this statute that the trial court itself must bear the responsibility to instruct the jury on certain fundamental and basic issues in a criminal trial; those issues “necessary” for the jury in their deliberations. As we stated' in Hedrick v. State (1951), 229 Ind. 381, 98 N. E. 2d 906:
“A party has a right to insist that the court shall instruct the jury specifically on all legal questions necessary to enable them to reach a true verdict, and to have instructions made so specific as to apply to the facts of the particular case as developed by the evidence.”
I can conceive of few instructions so necessary, fundamental and essential to a criminal trial (and hence under the clear mandate of Burns § 9-1805(5) the responsibility of the trial court to give) as an adequate explanation of the necessary elements of the offense with which a defendant is charged.
“We think it is self-evident that a jury cannot perform its duty of determining the guilt or innocence of a defendant accused of a crime unless they know the essential elements of the crime which he is alleged to have committed.” U.S. v. Rybicki (6th Cir., 1968), 403 F. 2d 599.
The instructions in every criminal trial must necessarily include a definition or explanation of the crime charged in precise and accurate language, setting forth the essential elements of the offense. Instructions further defining the elements of the offense may not be necessary where the terms used in a statute are self-explanatory, but when the terms have a technical legal meaning not usually understood by a person of average intelligence the trial court must define those terms in order to carry out its responsibility to properly instruct the jury on the elements of the offense.
The majority today holds that the essential element of “unlawful act” in the crime of involuntary manslaughter (Burns § 10-3405) does not have a technical legal meaning but is a term which is familiar to “the man on the street”. I believe, however, that the term is indeed one which has a spe*70cific, technical meaning as used in this statute. We have held that the “unlawful act” element of this offense must be an actual violation of a criminal statute. Ensign v. State (1968), 250 Ind. 119, 235 N. E. 2d 162. Involuntary manslaughter actually encompasses another criminal violation within itself. The breaking of another criminal statute is a condition precedent to the violation of Burns § 10-3405. The majority opinion, therefore, must be grounded on the assumption that the “man on the street” is aware not only of the entire range of criminal offenses, but also of the necessary elements of these offenses as defined by the Legislature in its statutes. I believe that the more realistic approach would be to recognize that the very technical and precise meaning which the term “unlawful act” has been held to have would not be properly understood by a jury unless they were instructed as to what they might consider an “unlawful act”. Since there was no charge on this point, nor was it defined, explained or referred to in any of the other instructions given at the trial, the jury was left to speculate and improvise as to what would constitute this necessary element of this crime. An explanation of an offense should not leave jurors in ignorance of or leave them to their conjecture as to what constitutes the offense. Because the “unlawful act” in the offense must be a violation of some other criminal statute the jury should have been charged as to what possible violation of criminal law the evidence may have disclosed.
The majority, however, states that the defendant should have come forth with any additional instructions he might have desired and cites several cases in support of its position. It should be noted however that a number of these cases are civil in nature and we are, of course, dealing with a statute which is specifically concerned with the instructing of a jury in a criminal case. As I previously stated this statute places on the trial court the responsibility of giving the “necessary” instructions in a criminal case and I believe it apparent that *71the elements of the offense charged fall within the definition of necessary.1
I trust the majority is aware of the import and possible consequences of its decision today. When it states that the average juryman knows what is meant by “unlawful act” as used in Burns § 10-3405, it has held that the “man on the street” has an assumed knowledge of the specific elements of every criminal statute enacted by the Legislature of the State of Indiana. If this be so then the specificity and number of instructions can be sharply reduced to a general charge to the jury that if they find the evidence at a trial has revealed any “unlawful acts” they should return a conviction. This opinion seems to be a return to the rather simplistic function of instructions best illustrated by the perhaps apocryphal story of Andrew Jackson’s famous charge to the jury which he used as a trial judge:
“Do justice between these parties.”
Prentice, J., concurs.
Note. — Reported in 300 N. E. 2d 350.

. The majority’s approach in this case would also result in the rather bizarre practice of requiring the defendant to decide what criminal statutes the evidence reveals he may have violated and submit instructions on those statutes to be read to the jury.