CALIFORNIA EVIDENCE: CIVIL AND CRIMINAL
...Court Control of Proceedings
......Jury Instructions
.........Unanimity Instruction
15 Cards On This Topic:

Unanimity not required as jurors need not unanimously agree on a theory of 1st degree murder as either felony murder or murder with premeditation and deliberation.

No error in failing to read CALJIC No. 8.74 's unanimity instruction before verdicts signed as to murders of V2 & V3 where earlier reading could not have affected jury’s verdict on murder of V1.

Unanimity instruction not required; in any case, jury unanimously found true the felony-murder special circumstance allegations, unanimously agreeing with 1st degree felony-murder theory.

Any possible instructional error re unanimity was harmless under any standard where jury unanimously found D was direct perpetrator of the killing.

Where evidence indicates jurors might disagree as to the particular act D committed, standard unanimity instruction should be given.

As pandering by encouragement can be of continuous ongoing nature, specifying that the pandering acts took place over a specified period showed the DA intended to charge D2 in this manner, and a unanimity instruction not required.

Trial court's response to jury's question as to 2d degree murder was error as it sanctioned a verdict not unanimous as to degree, and advised the jury D, rather than the actual killer, acted with malice aforethought.

Reversible error not to give unanimity instruction where there were two plausible instances in which D could have possessed a firearm and ammunition, and DA failed to elect which instance he was using to prove the charged offenses.

Apprendi and Ring have not altered existing law, and trial court ruled properly in not giving a unanimity instruction that D was either principal or an aider and abettor.

Harmless error, if any, not to give unanimity instruction on inflicting corporal injury on cohabitant where beating with a tire iron followed immediately by a beating with a fist was only one statutory violation.

Though D's requested unanimity instruction should have been given, no prejudice where number of counts and time frame were clearly explained and supported by evidence, and D confessed on stand to 5 times the offenses for which convicted.

Unanimity instruction not required where DA did not have to elect which shots she relied on for attempted murder charge-shots formed one transaction, and jury must have accepted or rejected V's testimony in toto.

No unanimity instruction required where the predicate violations were simply alternate ways of proving a necessary element of the charged offense.

Unanimity instruction not required where acts were so closely connected in time as to form part of one transaction, or one discrete criminal event.

Court erred by not instructing that all jurors had to agree on a specific act D committed for a guilty finding on one count; no error in instructing with comprehensive unanimity instruction applied to all listed offenses.