In re Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases

Background

The Supreme Court Committee on Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases (Committee) proposed several new and amended Florida criminal jury instructions and submitted them to the Court for authorization for publication and use.
Proposed new instructions include topics such as edited recordings, stipulations, willful blindness, involuntary intoxication (negating specific intent and resulting in insanity), falsely personating an officer, slot machines, and selling a minor into prostitution; multiple prostitution-related instructions were amended.
The Committee circulated proposals for public comment; one comment addressed a change to the "Weighing the Evidence" instruction but the Committee did not revise its proposal in response.
The Court reviewed the proposals, authorized publication and use of the instructions as set out in the appendix, but declined to authorize one specific additional sentence the Committee sought to add to instruction 3.6(e)(1) (involuntary intoxication negating specific intent) because of uncertainty about the appellate authority supporting that language.
The Court expressly stated that authorization for publication/use is not an endorsement of legal correctness, and parties remain free to request alternative instructions or challenge legal correctness; notes/comments reflect only the Committee’s views.

Issues

Issue	Committee's Argument	Court's Response/Defense	Held
Whether to authorize the proposed new and amended jury instructions for publication/use	Committee: Publish a set of new and amended instructions (listed) for use statewide	Court: Reviewed proposals and attachments, with cautionary language about correctness; accepted most proposals	Authorized publication and use of the instructions as in the appendix, effective when opinion becomes final
Inclusion of an instruction addressing edited recordings	Committee: Adopted instruction explaining that edited recordings omit irrelevant portions and should not prejudice jurors	Court: Found instruction acceptable	Authorized instruction 22 (Edited Recording) for use
Addition to 3.6(e)(1) stating involuntary-intoxication-to-point-of-incapacity is not a defense to general-intent lesser-included or additional counts	Committee: Proposed an explicit sentence to bar the involuntary-intoxication-negating-specific-intent defense as to general-intent offenses based on district court authority	Court: Not confident district-court decisions supporting that precise wording were correct	Declined to authorize inclusion of that proposed language in instruction 3.6(e)(1)
Effect of authorization on parties' rights to challenge instructions	Committee: Sought broad publication/use authority	Court: Emphasized authorization does not preclude litigants from requesting alternative instructions or challenging correctness	Authorized publication/use but preserved parties’ rights to request alternatives and contest legal correctness

Key Cases Cited

Desilien v. State, 595 So.2d 1046 (Fla. 4th DCA 1992) (discusses deliberate avoidance/willful blindness)
Hallman v. State, 633 So.2d 1116 (Fla. 3d DCA 1994) (willful blindness authority)
Hale v. State, 838 So.2d 1185 (Fla. 5th DCA 2003) (willful blindness authority)
Lucherini v. State, 932 So.2d 521 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006) (involuntary-intoxication instruction precedent)
Carter v. State, 710 So.2d 110 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998) (involuntary intoxication by force/fraud/trickery precedent)
Brancaccio v. State, 698 So.2d 597 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997) (involuntary intoxication resulting in insanity precedent)
Cobb v. State, 884 So.2d 437 (Fla. 5th DCA) (involuntary-intoxication related authority)
Eccles v. Stone, 183 So. 628 (Fla. 1938) (slot-machine possession need not be shown used for gambling)
Dept. of Business Regulation v. Rains, 477 So.2d 1029 (Fla. 2d DCA 1985) (slot-machine definition/use authority)
Hazuri v. State, 91 So.3d 836 (Fla. 2012) (read-back/play-back of testimony guidance)
State v. Barrow, 91 So.3d 826 (Fla. 2012) (read-back/play-back guidance)