# In re Trial Courts of the Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases

> Supreme Court of Florida · April 16, 1981 · 431 So. 2d 594

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7525564

## Case

- **Full name:** In the Matter of the USE BY the TRIAL COURTS OF the STANDARD JURY INSTRUCTIONS IN CRIMINAL CASES and the Standard Jury Instructions in Misdemeanor Cases
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Florida
- **Decided:** April 16, 1981
- **Citations:** 431 So. 2d 594; 1981 Fla. LEXIS 2937
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurring in part by Sundberg
- **Judges:** Adkins, Alderman, Also, Boyd, Change, Doubt, Elimination, England, Except, Instruction, McDonald, Overton, Sundberg, Trial, Whim
- **Cited by:** 127 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Modified by In re Trial Courts of the Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases, 1981 Fla. LEXIS 2938 (1981).
- Negative treatments: 3
- Distinguished by: 0
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7525564

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- observing that "[t]he elimination of the current standard instruction on circumstantial evidence does not totally prohibit such an instruction if a trial judge, in his or her discretion, feels that such is necessary under the peculiar facts of a specific case," but that "the g…
- recognizing there could be improvement in the manner in which a case is presented to the jury on alternate theories of felony murder and premeditated murder and suggesting use of special verdict forms as a solution
- rejecting the special standard for evaluating circumstantial evidence as “confusing and incorrect”

## Opinion text

SUNDBERG, Chief Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in all parts of the majority opinion except that part which approves reduction of lesser included offenses from four to two categories. Such a practice, I believe, will result in taking “a most critical eviden-tiary matter from the proper province of the jury and vesting] it improperly as a matter of law with the trial judge.” Hand v. State, 199 So.2d 100, 102 (Fla.1967); see Lomax v. State, 345 So.2d 719 (Fla.1977). To distinguish between “ample evidence to support a guilty verdict on the higher offense” on the one hand and a “total lack of evidence of the lesser offense” on the other simply is not meaningful to me. Hence, I dissent to the proposed change in rules 3.510 and 3.490, Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7525564. Public record. Not legal advice.