4 - Jury Instructions: Reinforcing Group Identity and Making Instructions Accessible to Jurors

Summary

Chapter 4 examines jury instructions, which are given orally by the judge to provide guidance to the jurors, including an understanding of the relevant law. The traditional view of jury instructions is that jurors are rational problem-solvers who just need to be told the law to apply. According to the transformation view, however, the reading of the instructions provides an experience for the jurors that is far more than simply the conveyance of information about the law. The judge’s reading of the instructions as the jurors sit together in the jury box ensures that all of the jurors hear the instructions from start to finish, as a group, and that everyone in the courtroom, including the jurors, senses the important role the instructions play. If jury instructions are understood as part of the jury process of helping jurors to assume their role as jurors, then the oral reading by the judge needs to be supplemented by certain aids so that jurors understand the substance of the instructions. Jurors need to be given an individual written copy of the instructions; they should be permitted to take notes, and to submit written questions about the instructions to the judge.