California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Miller, A151040 (Cal. App. 2018):
Nonetheless, not every ambiguity, inconsistency, or deficiency in a jury instruction rises to the level of a due process violation. The question is " 'whether the ailing instruction . . . so infected the entire trial that the resulting conviction violates due process.' " ' " (People v. Mills (2012) 55 Cal.4th 663, 677.) Ultimately, " '[t]he test is whether there is a "reasonable likelihood that the jury . . . understood the charge," in a manner that violated defendant's rights.' " (People v. Pearson (2013) 56 Cal.4th 393, 476.)
This court recently stated: "In evaluating a challenge to a jury instruction, we must consider whether there is a 'reasonable likelihood' that the jury understood the charge in the way defendants suggest. [Citations.] 'Jurors do not sit in solitary isolation booths parsing instructions for subtle shades of meaning in the same way that lawyers might. Differences among them in interpretation of instructions may be thrashed out in the deliberative process, with commonsense understanding of the instructions in the light of all that has taken place at the trial likely to prevail over technical hairsplitting.' " (People v. Mackey (2015) 233 Cal.App.4th 32, 108.)
We cannot conclude that defendant was the victim of a due process violation. Reduced to its essence, defendant sees the instruction as constitutionally flawed because its second element did not have the words "to use it," so that it should have been "When the defendant possessed a shaved key, he had the intent to use it to feloniously break into or enter into any vehicle." Use of the prohibited tool to effect criminal entry is clearly implicit in the instruction. Read in its entirety, the instruction clearly linked possession to such an intent in the second and the fourth elements. We cannot discern any likelihood that the jury, " 'with commonsense understanding' " (People v. Mackey, supra, 233 Cal.App.4th at p. 108), interpreted the instruction to allow conviction for possession without intent to use it to commit a crime. (People v. Pearson, supra, 56 Cal.4th at p. 476.)
Moreover, the instruction is not to be examined " ' "in artificial isolation, but must be viewed in the context of the overall charge. " ' " (People v. Mills, supra, 55 Cal.4th at p. 677.) Here, the context was a completed burglary of an automobile. The jury was
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