Relevant Issue
When must a court further define terms of common usage given in a jury instruction?
Facts
After a drinking party together, Couch stated he would drive the victim to their home. Couch however drove past the victim’s home, to the victim’s protest, and eventually stopped down a deserted dirt road. Couch forcibly raped the victim and put his mouth on the victim’s breast and vagina.
Couch was charged with aggravated sexual assault, forcible sodomy, and kidnapping. During jury deliberation at trial the jury asked the judge to define the term “genitals” as used in the statutory instruction for forcible sodomy. The judge refused the jury’s request and Couch was convicted of all charges. Couch appealed his conviction, arguing in part that the sodomy conviction should be vacated due to the judge’s refusal to define a term of common usage.
Rule
When a jury requests a definition of a term critical to the meaning of a criminal statute the trial judge must provide the requested definition.
Analysis
The Court prefaced their analysis by stating that “It is normally unnecessary and undesirable for a trial judge to volunteer definitions of terms of common usage for the jury.” The Court will presume that jurors have ordinary intelligence and understand the meaning of ordinary words. This presumption shifts, however, when a jury requests a definition of a term used in an instruction. The Court referenced the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Bollenbach v. U.S. which stated, “When a jury makes explicit its difficulties a trial judge should clear them away with concrete accuracy.”
The Court noted that while there is risk that “supplying a definition will ‘obfuscate the normal interpretation of familiar words,’ where a jury at its own insistence requests the definition of a term whose understanding is essential to a proper application of the law, the trial judge must provide the requested definition.”
The Court reasoned that in Couch’s situation members of the jury may have been in conflict over whether Couch put his mouth on the victim’s breast but not vagina, or vice-versa. Clarification of the term “genitals” in the forcible sodomy statute would have clarified that genitals does not include the female breast but includes the vagina.
Holding
The Court held that because the term “genitals” was crucial to the forcible sodomy statute, and the jury requested its further definition, the court committed reversible error by not defining the term. The Court remanded Couch’s case for a new trial.