Dynamite Instruction Reversal; "The life of a judge is not meant to be one of ease"; Abe Lincoln Invoked. People v. Hinton, no. C043690 (Cal.Ct.App. (3d Dist.) Aug. 12, 2003)

Holding: The issue presented is whether the trial judge erred by giving the deadlocked jury a “dynamite” instruction. In his charge, the judge emphasized the case must be decided by a jury at some point. He said a trial necessitated a substantial investment in time and resources. He told jurors holding a minority position to “respect the majority opinion” and to “question their own judgment if a majority of the jurors take a different view of the case.” With this, the judge acted in clear and prejudicial violation of the California Supreme Court’s holding in People v. Gainer (1977) 19 Cal.3d 835 (Gainer).

Note: the court had harsh words for the superior court judge, who failed to consult numerous readily available and obvious sources which would have prevented the error. The trial judge, instead relied upon a civil proceeding benchbook and a civil case which noted the approval of a similar instruction in a civil case. That civil case, however, noted in the inappropriate use of the instruction in a criminal case.

Abraham Lincoln wrote: “[You ask] ‘the best mode of obtaining a thorough knowledge of the law’ is received. The mode is simple, though laborious, and tedious. It is only to get the books, and read, and study them carefully . . . . Work, work, work, is the main thing.” (Lincoln, Letter to John M. Brockman, Sept. 25, 1860 in Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (Basler edit., 1953) vol. 4, p. 121.) Since our 16th president’s day, we have been given a plethora of aids to lighten the burden of determining what the law is on any given subject, yet this trial judge failed even to undertake the modest endeavor of consulting the most obvious sources. The life of a judge is not meant to be one of ease.

Panel: Scotland, Nicholson, Hull (per curiam)