California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Ruffin, 2d Crim. No. B289334 (Cal. App. 2019):
Appellant contends the trial court's failure to define "semiautomatic" removed an element of the offense from the jury's consideration. We are not persuaded. First, appellant forfeited review of this issue because the instruction correctly quoted section 245 and appellant did not request any modification or clarification of the statutory language. Second, the trial court had no sua sponte duty to further define "semiautomatic" because the statutory definition of the term is consistent with its commonly understood meaning. (People v. Griffin (2004) 33 Cal.4th 1015, 1022-1023.)
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