JURY CHARGE – Presenting Issues to the Jury for Decision

START FROM THE END, BEFORE YOU EVEN BEGIN

My next several posts to this BLOG will explore the substance of the specific Questions that Texas juries are asked to decide in real estate lawsuits.

Juries answer these questions at the very end of a civil lawsuit – after presentation of all evidence and argument in in jury trial. This occurs many months, if not years, after the time that a lawsuit is filed. Nevertheless, I firmly believe that the time to review and explain the Jury Questions to the Client is on the front end.

Frequently, I will review the anticipated Charge with a potential new client during an initial consultation – before either one of us agrees to proceed. This is because proper assessment of the viability of a real estate lawsuit is critical to determining whether and how to proceed.

The haphazard will file a lawsuit with an incomplete understanding of the strengths and weakness of a claim. These cases almost always fizzle out, and sometimes crash and burn after the client has paid substantial legal expense.

Conversely, the truly strategic will analyze the final destination and possible routes to arrive there even before beginning the journey. After all, if you don’t know your destination, how can you possibly understand the direction you should travel?

With this in mind, a basic understanding of what the Jury Charge is and how it operates is helpful.

NOTE: For an interesting, short read about the History of Juries check out this post on the website of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.

JURY CHARGE – WHAT IS IT?

At the conclusion of a civil jury trial in Texas, the jury receives a set of written instructions and questions from the Judge.

This document is referred to as the “Jury Charge” or “Charge of the Court.” It is the document the jury will use to determine liability and damages in a given case. In this way, the Charge is the document through which the jury pronounces the “winner” and the “award” to be granted.

HOW & WHEN DOES THE JURY RECEIVE THE CHARGE?

At the conclusion of evidence, each party (Plaintiff(s) and Defendant(s)) is given an opportunity to make a closing statement consisting of argument and a recap of the evidence admitted during the evidentiary portion of the trial.

Following all parties’ closing argument, the Court reads the Jury Charge — verbatim –aloud in the courtroom.

The jury then retires to deliberate in private — usually in the “jury room” attached to the Courtroom.

HOW LONG DOES THE JURY HAVE TO DELIBERATE?

There is no prescribed time for the jury to deliberate.

Many factors influence how long jury deliberations last, including the volume and type of evidence they received, the length and complexity of the Charge, and of course whether they (or at least a specified number of them) evaluate the case and preferred outcome the same way.

When juries are unable to reach a result, they are said to be “hung” or “deadlocked.”

WHAT DOES THE JURY DO WITH THE CHARGE?

The jury’s answers to each of the questions are hand-written on the Charge by the jury’s foreperson. The Jury foreperson then delivers the completed Charge to the Bailiff who, in turn, delivers it to the Judge. This almost always occurs after the jury and the parties have all returned to the Courtroom.

The completed Charge (with answers to each jury question submitted) becomes the Jury’s Verdict.

WHERE DO THE QUESTIONS ON THE CHARGE COME FROM?

The questions presented to the Jury on the Charge are not arbitrary. If they were, then juries considering substantially similar issues with almost identical evidence may come to completely different results. This would undermine the predictability of our legal system. It would also upset the important notion of stare decisis, which is one of the underpinnings of the American judicial system.

Instead, they are prescribed questions intended to reflect the claims, defenses and other matters asserted by the parties to the lawsuit.  The questions and instructions contained in the Jury Charge come from a treatise called the Texas Pattern Jury Charges, which is published by the State Bar of Texas.

The Pattern Jury Charge is best characterized as a compilation of definitions, jury instructions, and supplemental material intended to assist legal practitioners with developing jury charges. Volumes are organized by broad practice area and are generally sold individually, since few practitioners have need for all of them. The pattern charges use questions to direct the practitioner to the proper provided fill-in-the-blank language.

In the next several blog posts, I will provide the Pattern Jury Charges for nuisance, trespass and other real estate related concepts. The background information above should assist in your understanding of how the Charge questions are used.