OUJI-CR 10-8A
GENERAL CLOSING CHARGE - NOTETAKING BY JURORS
You have been permitted to take notes during the testimony of this case. If you have done so you may refer to them during deliberations, and discuss the contents of your notes with other jurors. In your deliberations, give no more or no less weight to the views of a fellow juror just because that juror did or did not take notes. Your notes are not official transcripts, but are simply aids to your memory. It is the testimony from the witness stand which must be the basis of your determination of the facts, and ultimately, your verdict in the case.
Notes on Use
This Instruction is recommended IF the court permits jurors to take notes.
Committee Comments
The Court of Criminal Appeals first affirmed the discretion of the trial court to permit jurors to take notes during trial in Glazier v. State, 1973 OK CR 386, ¶ 15, 514 P.2d 87, 91. The Glazier opinion included dicta that jurors should not be allowed to take their notes into the jury room while deliberating, but in Cohee v. State, 1997 OK CR 30, ¶ 4, 942 P.2d 211, 212, the Court of Criminal Appeals repudiated this dicta, and it held that jurors may use their notes during deliberations. This Instruction is based on one suggested by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in Sligar v. Bartlett, 1996 OK 144, n.2, 916 P.2d 1383, 1387.
(2000 Supp.)