Adams v. Kraft et al

Filing 241

Preliminary Jury Instructions. Signed by Judge Lucy H. Koh on 5/7/2012. (lhklc2, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 5/11/2012)

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

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NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

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SAN JOSE DIVISION

United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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BERRY LYNN ADAMS,
Plaintiff,

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v.
DANIEL KRAFT, PHILLIP HAUCK,
and K. P. BEST,

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Defendants.

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No.: 5:10-CV-00602 LHK

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PRELIMINARY JURY INSTRUCTIONS

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Dated: May 7, 2012

_______________________________
LUCY H. KOH
United States District Judge

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PRELIMINARY JURY INSTRUCTIONS
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1.1A DUTY OF JURY

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Ladies and gentlemen: You are now the jury in this case. It is my duty to instruct you on
the law.
These instructions are preliminary instructions to help you understand the principles that

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apply to civil trials and to help you understand the evidence as you listen to it. You will be allowed

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to keep this set throughout the trial to which to refer. This set of instructions is not to be taken

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home and must remain in the jury room when you leave in the evenings. At the end of the trial, I

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will give you a final set of instructions. It is the final set of instructions which will govern your

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For the Northern District of California

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deliberations.
You must not infer from these instructions or from anything I may say or do as indicating
that I have an opinion regarding the evidence or what your verdict should be.

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It is your duty to find the facts from all the evidence in the case. To those facts you will

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apply the law as I give it to you. You must follow the law as I give it to you whether you agree

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with it or not. And you must not be influenced by any personal likes or dislikes, opinions,

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prejudices, or sympathy. That means that you must decide the case solely on the evidence before

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you. You will recall that you took an oath to do so.

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In following my instructions, you must follow all of them and not single out some and
ignore others; they are all important.

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PRELIMINARY JURY INSTRUCTIONS
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1.2 CLAIMS AND DEFENSES

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To help you follow the evidence, I will give you a brief summary of the positions of the
parties:

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The plaintiff, Berry Adams, makes three claims in this lawsuit:

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(1) The plaintiff claims that State Park Rangers Daniel Kraft and Phillip Hauck falsely

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arrested him in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution;

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(2) The plaintiff claims that State Park Rangers Daniel Kraft and Phillip Hauck used

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excessive force in arresting him in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution;

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and

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(3) The plaintiff claims that State Park Rangers Daniel Kraft and K.P. Best retaliated

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against him because he exercised his First Amendment right to free speech.

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The plaintiff has the burden of proving his claims.

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The defendants deny all the plaintiff’s claims. The defendants contend that they had

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probable cause to arrest plaintiff, that they did not use excessive force in arresting him, and that

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they did not retaliate against him for exercising his right to free speech.

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PRELIMINARY JURY INSTRUCTIONS
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1.3 BURDEN OF PROOF—PREPONDERANCE OF THE EVIDENCE

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When a party has the burden of proof on any claim by a preponderance of the evidence, it

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means you must be persuaded by the evidence that the claim is more probably true than not true.

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You should base your decision on all of the evidence, regardless of which party presented

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it.

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For the Northern District of California

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1.5 TWO OR MORE PARTIES—DIFFERENT LEGAL RIGHTS
You should decide the case as to each defendant separately. Unless otherwise stated, the
instructions apply to all parties.

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For the Northern District of California

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PRELIMINARY JURY INSTRUCTIONS
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1.6 WHAT IS EVIDENCE

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The evidence you are to consider in deciding what the facts are consists of:

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(1) the sworn testimony of any witness;

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(2) the exhibits which are received in evidence; and

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(3) any facts to which the lawyers have agreed.

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PRELIMINARY JURY INSTRUCTIONS
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1.7 WHAT IS NOT EVIDENCE

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In reaching your verdict, you may consider only the testimony and exhibits received into

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evidence. Certain things are not evidence, and you may not consider them in deciding what the

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facts are. I will list them for you:

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(1) Arguments and statements by lawyers are not evidence. The lawyers are not
witnesses. What they will say in their opening statements, will say in their closing
arguments, and at other times is intended to help you interpret the evidence, but it is
not evidence. If the facts as you remember them differ from the way the lawyers
have stated them, your memory of them controls.

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For the Northern District of California

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(2) Questions and objections by lawyers are not evidence. Attorneys have a duty to
their clients to object when they believe a question is improper under the rules of
evidence. You should not be influenced by the objection or by the court’s ruling on
it.

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(3) Testimony that has been excluded or stricken, or that you have been instructed to
disregard, is not evidence and must not be considered. In addition sometimes
testimony and exhibits are received only for a limited purpose; when I give a
limiting instruction, you must follow it.
(4) Anything you may have seen or heard when the court was not in session is not
evidence. You are to decide the case solely on the evidence received at the trial.

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PRELIMINARY JURY INSTRUCTIONS
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1.9 DIRECT AND CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

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Evidence may be direct or circumstantial. Direct evidence is direct proof of a fact, such as

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testimony by a witness about what that witness personally saw or heard or did. Circumstantial

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evidence is proof of one or more facts from which you could find another fact. You should

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consider both kinds of evidence. The law makes no distinction between the weight to be given to

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either direct or circumstantial evidence. It is for you to decide how much weight to give to any

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evidence.

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For the Northern District of California

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PRELIMINARY JURY INSTRUCTIONS
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1.10 RULING ON OBJECTIONS

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There are rules of evidence that control what can be received into evidence. When a lawyer

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asks a question or offers an exhibit into evidence and a lawyer on the other side thinks that it is not

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permitted by the rules of evidence, that lawyer may object. If I overrule the objection, the question

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may be answered or the exhibit received. If I sustain the objection, the question cannot be

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answered, and the exhibit cannot be received. Whenever I sustain an objection to a question, you

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must ignore the question and must not guess what the answer might have been.

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For the Northern District of California

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Sometimes I may order that evidence be stricken from the record and that you disregard or
ignore the evidence. That means that when you are deciding the case, you must not consider the
evidence that I told you to disregard.

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1.11 CREDIBILITY OF WITNESSES
In deciding the facts in this case, you may have to decide which testimony to believe and

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which testimony not to believe. You may believe everything a witness says, or part of it, or none

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of it. Proof of a fact does not necessarily depend on the number of witnesses who testify about it.

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In considering the testimony of any witness, you may take into account:

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(1) the opportunity and ability of the witness to see or hear or know the things testified
to;

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(2) the witness’s memory;

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(3) the witness’s manner while testifying;

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(4) the witness’s interest in the outcome of the case and any bias or prejudice;

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(5) whether other evidence contradicted the witness’s testimony;

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(6) the reasonableness of the witness’s testimony in light of all the evidence; and

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(7) any other factors that bear on believability.

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The weight of the evidence as to a fact does not necessarily depend on the number of

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witnesses who testify about it.

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1.12 CONDUCT OF THE JURY

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I will now say a few words about your conduct as jurors.

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First, keep an open mind throughout the trial, and do not decide what the verdict should be

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until you and your fellow jurors have completed your deliberations at the end of the case.
Second, because you must decide this case based only on the evidence received in the case

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and on my instructions as to the law that applies, you must not be exposed to any other information

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about the case or to the issues it involves during the course of your jury duty. Thus, until the end

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of the case or unless I tell you otherwise:

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For the Northern District of California

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Do not communicate with anyone in any way and do not let anyone else
communicate with you in any way about the merits of the case or anything to do
with it. This includes discussing the case in person, in writing, by phone or
electronic means, via e-mail, text messaging, or any Internet chat room, blog, Web
site or other feature. This applies to communicating with your fellow jurors until I
give you the case for deliberation, and it applies to communicating with everyone
else including your family members, your employer, the media or press, and the
people involved in the trial, although you may notify your family and your employer
that you have been seated as a juror in the case. But, if you are asked or approached
in any way about your jury service or anything about this case, you must respond
that you have been ordered not to discuss the matter and to report the contact to the
court.

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Because you will receive all the evidence and legal instruction you properly may
consider to return a verdict: do not read, watch, or listen to any news or media
accounts or commentary about the case or anything to do with it; do not do any
research, such as consulting dictionaries, searching the Internet or using other
reference materials; and do not make any investigation or in any other way try to
learn about the case on your own.
The law requires these restrictions to ensure the parties have a fair trial based on the same
evidence that each party has had an opportunity to address. A juror who violates these restrictions
jeopardizes the fairness of these proceedings. If any juror is exposed to any outside information,
please notify the court immediately.

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1.13 NO TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE TO JURY
During deliberations, you will have to make your decision based on what you recall of the

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evidence. You will not have a transcript of the trial. I urge you to pay close attention to the

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testimony as it is given.

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If at any time you cannot hear or see the testimony, evidence, questions or arguments, let
me know so that I can correct the problem.

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1.14 TAKING NOTES
If you wish, you may take notes to help you remember the evidence. If you do take notes,

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please keep them to yourself until you and your fellow jurors go to the jury room to decide the

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case. Do not let note-taking distract you. When you leave, your notes should be left in the jury

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room. No one will read your notes. They will be destroyed at the conclusion of the case.

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Whether or not you take notes, you should rely on your own memory of the evidence.

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Notes are only to assist your memory. You should not be overly influenced by your notes or those

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of your fellow jurors.

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For the Northern District of California

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1.18 BENCH CONFERENCES AND RECESSES

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From time to time during the trial, it may become necessary for me to talk with the

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attorneys out of the hearing of the jury, either by having a conference at the bench when the jury is

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present in the courtroom, or by calling a recess. Please understand that while you are waiting, we

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are working. The purpose of these conferences is not to keep relevant information from you, but to

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decide how certain evidence is to be treated under the rules of evidence and to avoid confusion and

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error.

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Of course, we will do what we can to keep the number and length of these conferences to a
minimum. I may not always grant an attorney’s request for a conference. Do not consider my

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For the Northern District of California

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granting or denying a request for a conference as any indication of my opinion of the case or of

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what your verdict should be.

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1.19 OUTLINE OF TRIAL

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Trials proceed in the following way: First, each side may make an opening statement.

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An opening statement is not evidence. It is simply an outline to help you understand what that

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party expects the evidence will show. A party is not required to make an opening statement.

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The plaintiff will then present evidence, and counsel for the defendant may cross-examine.
Then the defendant may present evidence, and counsel for the plaintiff may cross-examine.

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After the evidence has been presented, I will instruct you on the law that applies to the case
and the attorneys will make closing arguments.

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After that, you will go to the jury room to deliberate on your verdict.

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