March 15, 2013. A busy day for jury instructions at the Vermont Supreme Court. In State v. Casey, 2013 VT 22, the Court provided guidance on how a jury should be instructed in the event that a codefendant pleads guilty in the middle of a trial. In State v. Snow, 2013 VT 19, the Court provided guidance on the element of compulsion in a sexual-assault trial when the victim is alleged to have been asleep or incapacitated at the time of the alleged act. And in a civil case, Fagnant v. Foss, 2013 VT 16, the Court endorsed “the proposition that where courts can provide clear guidance with concise, “plain-English” instructions that convey the proper legal standards, they should do so.”
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Welcome to the Vermont Model Criminal Jury Instructions. The instructions are sponsored by the Vermont Bar Association.
Use the drop-down menus above or the search function below to find individual instructions and the accompanying reporter's notes.
In addition, clicking on the menu headers above will show a table of contents for that section, and there is also a master table of contents available. Long-time users of the instructions will find the master table of contents to be in the familiar format.
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You may search for an instruction by using the name of the crime (e.g., kidnapping) or by using the statutory citation (e.g., 13 V.S.A. 2405 or, more simply, 2405). Note that the search software is simply reading the text on each page, and thus doesn't recognize "VSA" without the periods.