What is a third party culpability instruction in a sexual assault case?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Moor, 2d Crim. No. B256126 (Cal. App. 2016):

A third-party culpability instruction is a pinpoint instruction on a defense theory of reasonable doubt. (People v. Hartsch (2010) 49 Cal.4th 472, 504.) The trial court is not required to give a pinpoint instruction that is argumentative or duplicates other instructions. (Id. at p. 500.) Third party culpability instructions "add little to the standard instruction on reasonable doubt." (Id. at p. 504.) "It is hardly a difficult concept for the jury to grasp that acquittal is required if there is reasonable doubt as to whether someone else committed the

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