OUJI-CR 10-10

GENERAL CLOSING CHARGE - CLOSING INSTRUCTION

After you have retired to consider your verdict, select one of your number as foreperson and enter upon your deliberations. [If you have questions during your deliberations, you may submit them to the bailiff, and I will attempt to answer them as fully as the law permits.] When you have agreed on a verdict, your foreperson alone will sign it, and you will, as a body, return it in open court. Your verdict must be unanimous. Forms of verdict will be furnished. You will now listen to the argument of counsel, which is a proper part of this trial.

Notes on Use

This instruction (or one of the alternatives in OUJI-CR 10-10A or 10-10B below) should be the last instruction to be given. The trial court is not required to give the second sentence of the instruction, which is in brackets.

Committee Comments

In Cohee v. State, 1997 OK CR 30, Attachment 1, 942 P.2d 211, 215 the Court of Criminal Appeals approved guidelines for trial courts when conducting jury trials in criminal cases. The guidelines included: "The trial court may instruct the jury that it may submit questions to the court during deliberations, and that the court will attempt to answer those questions as fully as the law permits." 

(2003 Supp.)