US pattern jury instructions: problems and proposals

The syntactic and semantic difficulties faced by jurors in courtroom trials, particularly with respect to jury instructions, are well documented (see, e.g., Charrow and Charrow 1979; Steele and Thornburg 1988; Tiersma 1993). Given the clear consensus about the difficulties of dealing with long, complex sentences and specialized terms of art (e.g. reasonable doubt), it has been difficult to understand why the legal system has been so slow to modify the pattern instructions used in most US jurisdictions. This paper will recognize the advance in instructions represented by the introduction of pattern instructions, suggest reasons for the current inertia, identify chinks in the wall of resistance (notably in Arizona), and suggest a model for reform that draws upon the recognition that the role of the jury as finder of fact has to compete with the judicial perception that the jury must be highly constrained and controlled.