Does the court have a duty to instruct the jury on the elements of battery, false imprisonment, and assault with a deadly weapon?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Smith, 134 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 30 Cal.4th 581, 68 P.3d 302 (Cal. 2003):

The court instructed the jury that evidence had been introduced to show that defendant had committed "battery, false imprisonment, kidnapping, rape, attempted sodomy or oral copulation, robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, and false imprisonment, which involve the express or implied use of force or violence," and that a juror could not consider any crime unless that juror found beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant had committed it. Defendant contends the court erred by not also instructing the jury on the elements of these crimes. However, defendant stated he did not request those instructions. The court has no duty to instruct on the elements of other crimes absent a defense request, because the defendant might not want lengthy instructions on those elements. (People v. Weaver (2001) 26 Cal.4th 876, 987, 111 Cal.Rptr.2d 2, 29 P.3d 103.) Here, defendant reasonably wanted the court not to itemize the elements of all the other crimes he committed. There was no doubt that those elements were generally present, so focusing on them could only have harmed, not benefited, defendant.

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