Sentences with phrase «because jury instructions»

On appeal, the First Circuit reversed the finding of false arrest because the jury instructions were incorrect and ordered a new trial.

A federal appeals court vacated the conviction last year, however, because jury instructions didn't reflect a later U.S. Supreme Court decision narrowing the meaning of official acts that can support a federal bribery conviction.

Not exact matches

Although Silver's legislative grants and votes qualified, his conviction was reversed because prosecutors also put in evidence of a lot of other behavior that might not qualify, and jury instructions didn't correctly describe the new standard.

Silver's conviction on charges that he took payoffs disguised as legal fees in return for using his clout in Albany to benefit developers and a cancer researcher was overturned last year by the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals because of flawed jury instructions.

Legal experts said the impact of the McDonnell decision would make it harder for the feds to convict Silver a second time, because revised jury instructions could exclude some of the most damning evidence from consideration.

Kim says the only issue in the appeals panel decision is that the jury instructions were incorrect, because of the recent Supreme Court decision, which involved former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife.

In Thursday's ruling, the appellate court ruled the judge's erroneous instruction to the jury at Silver's trial «was not harmless because it is not clear beyond a reasonable doubt that a rational jury would have reached the same conclusion if properly instructed, as is required by law for the verdict to stand.»

But in the jury instructions, the judge's explanation of an official action was too broad, the appeals court found, because it swept in some conduct that the Supreme Court's decision would now exclude.

Kim said the only issue in the appeals panel decision is that the jury instructions were incorrect, because of the recent Supreme Court decision, which involved former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife.

Silver's conviction for doing legislative favors in return for legal referral fees and 12 - year prison sentence was reversed because of incorrect jury instructions, but prosecutors from the office of acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim told the judge it is in the «public interest» to retry him quickly.

Supreme Court Justice Steven L. Barrett dismissed the manslaughter indictment against Haste in May because he said prosecutors» instructions to the grand jury who indicted Haste were faulty.

Haste, who was indicted by a grand jury but had the case tossed out because of improper jury instructions from the Bronx District Attorney's Office, said he believed Graham had a gun in his possession at the time.

The reason so many prosecutors have 90 % plus conviction rates isn't that they are such super lawyers, or because juries don't follow the judge's instructions.

The trial court found that Thomas» requested jury instruction based on the statute was not warranted because he retreated to his vehicle after firing a weapon on someone else's property.

On Aug. 30, the Court of Appeals of the State of Mississippi issued a ruling (via the Legal Profession Blog) in which it reversed the 2009 manslaughter conviction of Justin Thomas because the lower court refused to give a requested jury instruction regarding the castle doctrine.

It also noted that trial and appellate courts were «not entirely powerless» because a judgment may be vacated if «there is no evidence to support the jury's decision,» and because «appellate review is available to test the sufficiency of the jury instructions.»

In addition, punitive damage awards may be set aside because of flaws in jury instructions.

Jury instructions can drastically change the outcome of a case because jurors are laypeople who do not necessarily understand the law as it is explained to them by the judge.

In this way, final jury instructions differ from preliminary instructions because final instructions are tailored to each trial, while preliminary instructions apply to the job jurors have in all trials.

In the New Hampshire case, the Supreme Court found no error because the blogger's posts were not shared with his fellow jurors and because he assured the trial judge that he had followed his instructions once the jury was seated, as Molly McDonough reported in October in the ABA Journal eReport.

Allied then argued that a new trial was necessary, because the judge had bungled the jury instructions.

«By prohibiting admission of sexual history evidence to support the inferences leading to the twin myths, parliament has signalled that because of the significant dangers of influencing the jury to engage in lines of reasoning based on those myths, it is not sufficient to allow them to hear it even with an appropriate cautionary instruction.»

Because the individualized assessment of the appropriateness of the death penalty is a moral inquiry into the culpability of the defendant, and not an emotional response to the mitigating evidence, I agree with the Court that an instruction informing the jury that they «must not be swayed by mere sentiment, conjecture, sympathy, passion, prejudice, public opinion or public feeling» does not by itself violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

Because of an error with the jury verdict form in which an instruction regarding comparative negligence was left out, the judge ordered a retrial on that issue alone.

New trial ordered because of jury instructions regarding defence of accident, murder s. 2, and manslaughter.

The appellants also submitted the trial judge erred in instructing the jury to disregard the brakes issue because: (i) common sense suggests that brake linings might create an issue with brake function and (ii) such an instruction ignored the reverse onus placed on Vicentini and Ford Credit by s. 193 (1) of the Highway Traffic Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. H. 8.

The Defendant argued that it was entitled to a new trial because the Restatement jury instruction was improper, based on this interpretation.

Some Juries might also rule contrary to their instructions without actually having heard about jury nullification because they have some sort of sympathy with the defendant.

Also, it isn't terribly uncommon for a jury to think that they are deliberately ignoring the law provided to them in the jury instructions when they render a verdict, because they think doing so would be unjust, when they actually misunderstood the jury instructions regarding the law and by disregarding the law as they misunderstand it to be based upon their misreading of the jury instructions, are actually following the law upon which they were properly instructed.

Often everyone even knows that the jury reached its verdict because it misunderstood the law or the facts, based upon interviews with the jurors immediately following the trial, but nothing can be done about that to reverse a jury verdict if a sincere jury following the instructions could have reached the same conclusion if they'd viewed the credibility of the witnesses differently.

The Appellants» Proposed «Global but for» Test: The appellants submitted that the questions and instructions were deficient because they did not tell the jury to consider «whether Jordan's injuries would have been avoided but for the defendants» collective negligent conduct.»

Lawyers are mining social networks for evidence, the federal jury instructions have been amended in an attempt to reduce the number of mistrials across the country due to jurors» social media posts, and lawyers are even losing their jobs because of their careless social media postings.

«Because we conclude that the declaring code and the structure, sequence, and organization of the API packages are entitled to copyright protection, we reverse the district court's copyrightability determination with instructions to reinstate the jury's infringement finding as to the 37 Java packages,» Federal Circuit Judge Kathleen O'Malley wrote in the judgement.

The court found that this instruction was defective because it did not require the jury to find that the Salesperson was acting within the scope of her duties when the fraud was committed.