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Welcome to The Forecite Blog™ -- Criminal Jury Instructions Prepared by Tom Lundy. This is a blog about criminal jury instructions from the defense perspective. The goal of the blog is to highlight recent state and federal cases which suggest issues and strategies relevant to jury instruction practice. The blog will also include selected sample instructions from recent cases.

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Sunday, February 28, 2010

Leaving The Scene Of The Crime Is Not Flight (Virginia)

Simply leaving the scene of the crime, without more, does not demonstrate a consciousness of guilt. Thus, it is improper to include such “overly broad” language in any instruction on flight.

For example, Turman v. Commonwealth, 276 Va. 558, 667 S.E.2d 767 (2008) concluded that the Model Jury Instruction on flight was defective and therefore the trial court committed reversible error in granting the instruction. We held in Turman that the phrase "if a person leaves the place where a crime was committed" is "overly broad" and results in an incorrect statement of the law. (276 Va. at 563, 566, 667 S.E.2d at 771.)
Posted by The author and editor-in-chief at 3:00 AM
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