California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Perez, B296242 (Cal. App. 2021):
10. Appellants fail to persuade us that the trial court had a sua sponte duty to give a unanimity instruction in addition to the instructions it provided. (See People v. Kozel (1982) 133 Cal.App.3d 507, 528-529.) The cases cited pertain to situations in which the People presented evidence of more than one discrete act that could have been the basis for a single count. In that situation, either the court must instruct the jury that it must unanimously agree on which specific act constituted the crime, or the prosecutor must elect the specific act relied upon to prove the charge to the jury. (See People v. Jo (2017) 15 Cal.App.5th 1128, 1178.) But that was not what transpired here: there was only one act that constituted murder.
The above passage should not be considered legal advice. Reliable answers to complex legal questions require comprehensive research memos. To learn more visit www.alexi.com.