Does the trial court have a duty to instruct the jury as to the elements of first degree murder and the required mens rea for first-degree murder?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Martinez, B253468 (Cal. App. 2014):

Defendant's argument is unclear, but he appears to suggest that although the trial court did, in fact, instruct the jury as to the elements of first and second degree murder and the required mens rea for first degree murder, it should have read the instructions in a different order, combined them with the aiding and abetting instructions, added different or less ambiguous language, and perhaps even directed a finding that defendant was not the shooter. In essence, defendant appears to think the jury was incapable of understanding its instructions or correlating them with other instructions. On the contrary, as we have previously observed, "[j]urors are presumed able to understand and correlate instructions and are further presumed to have followed the court's instructions. [Citation.]" (People v. Sanchez (2001) 26 Cal.4th 834, 852.) If defendant wished clarification, different language, or additional, pinpoint instructions, they should have been requested in the trial court. As the instructions given were correct in the law on this issue and responsive to the evidence, the trial court had no duty to give additional clarifying or amplifying instructions absent a request. (People v. Mayfield (1997) 14 Cal.4th 668, 778.)

In any event, we find there was no reasonable likelihood that the jurors were misled by the instructions and that any error would have been harmless under any standard. (See Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 24 [harmless beyond a

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reasonable doubt]; People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818, 836 [better result not reasonably probable].) Despite defendant's claim that there was minimal evidence that he shared the shooter's premeditated intent to kill, we find such evidence overwhelming.

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