California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Englebrecht, D058075 (Cal. App. 2012):
Englebrecht argues the trial court sua sponte was required to instruct the jury with the definition of the terms "zone of harm" or "kill zone." As a general matter, " 'a party may not complain on appeal that an instruction correct in law and responsive to the evidence was too general or incomplete unless the party has requested appropriate clarifying or amplifying language.' " (People v. Guiuan (1998) 18 Cal.4th 558, 570.) "Although trial courts, generally, have a duty to define technical terms that have meanings peculiar to the law, there is no duty to clarify, amplify, or otherwise instruct on commonly understood words or terms used in statutes or jury instructions." (People v. Griffin (2004) 33 Cal.4th 1015, 1022.) Where a phrase is commonly understood by speakers of the English language and is not used in a technical sense peculiar to the law, the trial court is under no duty to instruct the jury on the meaning of the phrase in the absence of a request. (People v. Estrada (1995) 11 Cal.4th 568, 574-575.) "A word or phrase having a technical, legal meaning requiring clarification by the court is one that has a definition that differs from its nonlegal meaning." (Id. at p. 574.)
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