Senate Bill S5569

                                BILL NUMBER:S5569

TITLE OF BILL:  An act to amend the criminal procedure law, in
relation to jury deliberations

This is one in a series of measures being introduced at the request of
the Chief Administrative judge upon the recommendation of her Advisory
Committee on Criminal Law and Procedure.

This measure would amend section 310.30 of the Criminal Procedure Law
to allow a trial judge, at the request of a deliberating jury, to
provide the jury with a complete written copy of the court's charge.
Previously, we have endorsed a proposal, not enacted into law, to
allow a court to submit only portions of the court's charge. The
present proposal differs in that it provides for the court's entire
charge to be delivered to the jury upon request.

Sections 310.20 and 310.30 of the Criminal Procedure Law specify the
materials that may be provided by the court to a deliberating jury,
which include exhibits received in evidence as may be permitted by the
court (CPL section 310.20(1)), a verdict sheet (CPL section
310.20(2)), a written list of the names of the witnesses whose
testimony was presented during the trial (CPL section 310.20(3)) and,
under certain circumstances and with the consent of the parties,
copies of the text of a statute (CPL section 310.30).

              

Yet it is not uncommon for a deliberating jury to ask the trial judge
to provide it with a copy of its charge, especially in complex cases.
The Criminal Procedure Law, however, does not authorize the court to
grant such a request. Indeed, the Court of Appeals has held that
providing only portions of the court's charge over the objection of a
party is improper because it would "convey the message that these
(portions) are of particular importance," thus subordinating other
portions of the charge (People if Owens, 69 NY2d 585, 591 (1987)).
Although such concerns are not present where the entire charge is
submitted to the jury, the Court subsequently held that the
restrictive language of CPL 310.30 prohibits a court from distributing
its entire charge to the jury (People v Johnson, 81 NY2d 980 (1993)).

The Supreme Court of the United States long ago held that it is not
error to provide the jury with a written copy of the charge (Haupt v
United States, 330 US 631, 643 (194.7)). Moreover, between 2003 and
2005, the Jury Trial Project, initiated by then Chief Judge Judith
Kaye, conducted a year-long experiment in which participating judges
from across New York State sat on 112 trials in which innovative jury
trial practices were used. The Jury Trial Project concluded that
jurors need assistance to do their jobs well, as reflected by jurors'
own assessments of trial complexity. Jurors tended to view trials as
being very complex, while judges presiding over the same cases viewed
the trial as not at all complex. In criminal cases, where only 8% of
judges viewed any particular criminal trial as very complex, nearly
half the jurors thought of them as very complex (Final Report of the
Committees of the jury Trial Project, New York State Unified Court
System, 2005). The Jury Trial Project concluded, based on trials in
which deliberating jurors were provided with a written copy of the
judge's final charge, that written instructions can assist jurors in
correctly fulfilling their responsibilities (id. at 32; see also Jury


Trial Innovations in New York State: Enhancing the Trial Process for
All Participants: A Practical Guide for Trial Judges, New York State
Unified Court System, 2009). A similar finding was made by the
American Bar Association, which determined that a basic principle for
a jury trial should be to provide each juror "with a written copy of
instructions for use while the jury is being instructed and during
deliberations" (American Bar Association Principles for juries and
jury Trials, Principal 14B, (2005)).

This measure would amend CPL section 310.30 to authorize a trial court
to submit its entire charge to a deliberating jury upon their request.
Consent of the parties is not required. However, counsel for both
parties would be permitted to examine the written instructions and be
heard thereon, and the documents would be marked as a court exhibit
prior to their submission to the jury. Also, on consent of the parties
to only provide a limited portion of the charge, the court would be
bound by the parties' agreement to provide only that portion agreed to
by the attorneys.

This act shall take effect immediately, and shall apply to all trials
commenced on or after such effective date.

Legislative History: None. New proposal.