Smith v. The State of California Department of Highway Patrol

Filing 121

Supplemental Preliminary Jury Instruction Re Jury Questions to Witnesses. (jdlc1S, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 3/19/2015)

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1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 7 NICOLE SUMMER SMITH, Case No. 13-cv-01341-JD Plaintiff, 8 v. SUPPLEMENTAL PRELIMINARY JURY INSTRUCTION 9 10 United States District Court Northern District of California 11 THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAY PATROL, Defendant. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 The Court will give the jury the attached jury instruction regarding questions to witnesses and provide copies of the attached form. IT IS SO ORDERED. Dated: March 19, 2015 ______________________________________ JAMES DONATO United States District Judge INSTRUCTION ON QUESTIONS TO WITNESSES BY JURORS 1 2 3 You will be allowed to propose written questions to witnesses after the lawyers have completed their questioning of each witness. You may propose questions in order to clarify the testimony, but you are not to express any opinion about the testimony or argue with a witness. If you propose any questions, remember that your role is that of a neutral fact finder, not an advocate. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 United States District Court Northern District of California 11 12 Before I excuse each witness, I will offer you the opportunity to write out a question on a form provided by the court. Do not sign the question. I will review the question with the attorneys to determine if it is legally proper. There are some proposed questions that I will not permit, or will not ask in the wording submitted by the juror. This might happen either due to the rules of evidence or other legal reasons, or because the question is expected to be answered later in the case. If I do not ask a proposed question, or if I rephrase it, do not speculate as to the reasons. Do not give undue weight to questions you or other jurors propose. You should evaluate the answers to those questions in the same manner you evaluate all of the other evidence. By giving you the opportunity to propose questions, I am not requesting or suggesting that you do so. It will often be the case that a lawyer has not asked a question because it is legally objectionable or because a later witness may be addressing that subject. 13 14 Source 15 Ninth Circuit Model Civil Jury Instruction 1.15. 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 2 2 Smith v. The State of California Department of Highway Patrol United States District Court, Northern District of California Case No. 3:13-cv-01341-JD 3 JUROR QUESTION FORM 1 4 5 6 Please use this form to propose questions to be asked to a witness. Do not sign the form. After the witness is done testifying, hand the form to the courtroom deputy. Please remember that in proposing questions, your role is that of a neutral factfinder, not an advocate. 7 8 9 Name of witness: ____________________________________________ Question(s): 10 United States District Court Northern District of California 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 TO BE FILLED OUT BY THE COURT: Date and time question was proposed: 25 26 Question asked? (Yes/No/As revised): 27 28 3

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