Is a jury's failure to instruct the jury on an essential element of the crime of driving the wrong way down a one-way street a mistake?

Here, by failing to instruct the jury on the charged acts forbidden by law, the trial court failed to instruct on an essential element of the offense. Contrary to respondent's position, it is not clear that appellant's conviction was based on his neglect of a duty imposed by law. However, there is no evidence from which the jury could have found in favor of appellant on the omitted element. The evidence that appellant was doing an act forbidden by law by driving the wrong way down a one-way street was uncontroverted, and no reasonable juror could conclude otherwise. Further, appellant's sole defense was identity. This defense was necessarily rejected by the jury when it returned a guilty verdict. Therefore, the error in failing to instruct on the charged acts forbidden by law was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. (Rose v. Clark (1986) 478 U.S. 570, 106 S.Ct. 3101, 92 L.Ed.2d 460.)

Appellant also contends that it was error to instruct the jury that the charged crimes could be based on either the doing of an act forbidden by law or the neglect of any duty imposed by law when a neglect of duty was not charged in the information. Although the pleadings should specify which provision of a statute is relied on (People v. Mandell (1939) 35 Cal.App.2d 368, 372, 95 P.2d 704), the evidence supported the giving of the contested instructions. Further, the giving of these instructions did not prejudice appellant since the evidence conclusively demonstrated that appellant did an act forbidden by law as charged in the information. (See People v. Soules (1940) 41 Cal.App.2d 298, 313, 106 P.2d 639.)