2.Preliminary Jury Instructions

JUDGE WHEELER: Please be seated. All right. Good morning to everyone. Thank you for your promptness in returning this morning. The Court certainly appreciates that. As you know, you have been selected and now you have been sworn as the jury to try the case of the State of Florida v. Katherine Magbanua.

I will do my best to try to run this trial as efficiently as possible. As I mentioned before, normally we will be in the courtroom during regular working hours. However, sometimes due to witness schedules, we might go over a little bit or we might even be under a little bit; but I'll try to adhere, as best I can, to that schedule. Absent any extraordinary circumstances, we will start at 9 o'clock every morning.

I expect counsel and any other people that are associated with this case to be on time and ready to proceed as directed. And so in that same manner, I also ask that you please be timely in your return to the courtroom both in the mornings and after your lunchtime so that we can keep on schedule.

I also don't want you to be concerned that there will be times when I will need to have discussions with the counsel outside of your hearing. we will have a sidebar discussion. I don't want you to be concerned about that when we do have those discussions.

This is a criminal case. Ms. Magbanua has been charged with the crimes of first degree murder, conspiracy to commit first degree murder, and solicitation to commit first degree murder; and the definition and elements of those offenses will be explained to you at a later time.

It is your solemn responsibility to determine if the State has proved its accusations beyond a reasonable doubt against Ms. Magbanua, and your verdict must be based solely on the evidence or the lack of evidence and the law. The charging document in this case is not evidence. It's not to be considered by you as proof of any guilt.

It is the Judge's responsibility to decide which laws apply to this case and to explain those laws to you, and it's your responsibility to decide what the facts of this case may be and to apply the law to those facts. Thus, the province of the jury and the province of the Court are well-defined, and they do not overlap. This is one of the fundamental principles of our system of justice.

Before proceeding further, it will be helpful if you understand how the trial will be conducted. At the beginning of the trial, the attorneys will have an opportunity to make an opening statement to you. The opening statement gives the attorney a chance to tell you what evidence they believe will be presented during the trial. What the lawyers say is not evidence, and you are not to consider it as such.

Following opening statements, witnesses will be called to testify under oath, and they will be examined and cross-examined by the attorneys. Documents and other exhibits may be produced as evidence. After the evidence has been presented, I will instruct you on the law that is applicable to the case. And following that, the attorneys will have an opportunity to make a closing argument to you.

You should not form any definite or fixed opinion on the merits of the case until you have heard all of the evidence, the argument of the lawyers, and the instruction on the law by me; and until that time, you must not discuss this case amongst yourselves.

During the course of the trial, the Court will take recesses; and during these recesses, you will not discuss the case with anyone nor permit anyone to say anything to you in your presence about the case. If anyone attempts to do this, then please ask them to stop. If they persist, then please notify the bailiff, who will notify me.

The case must be tried by you only on the evidence admitted during the trial in your presence and in the presence of the Defendant, the attorneys, and the Judge. Please do not conduct any investigation on your own. And as I have previously warned, this includes reading any newspapers, watching the television, using your computer, the cell phone, the Internet, or any electronic device to get any information related to the people or places involved in this case. And this applies whether you are here at the courthouse, at home, or anywhere else.

JUDGE WHEELER: Please do not visit any places mentioned in the trial or use the Internet to look at any maps or pictures to see any place discussed. Please do not have any discussions of any sort with any friends or family members about the case or the people or places involved. Do not let even the closest family member make a comment to you or ask questions about the trial.

In this age of electronic communication, I want to stress again that just as you must not talk about this case face-to-face, you must not talk about this case by using any electronic device. That would be a phone, computer, or any other electronic device, and that would include posting information on an Internet website, a chat room, or a blog.

In every criminal proceeding, a Defendant has the absolute right to remain silent. At no time is it the duty of a Defendant to prove his or her innocence. From the exercise of a Defendant's right to remain silent, a jury is not permitted to draw any inference of guilt, and the fact that a defendant does not take the witness stand must not influence your verdict in any manner whatsoever.

The attorneys are trained in the rules of evidence and trial procedure, and it's their duty to make all objections that they feel are proper. when an objection is made, you should not speculate on why it is made. And if an objection is sustained or upheld by me, you should not speculate on what might have occurred had the objection not been sustained.

Pads and pens have been provided to you in the event you would like to take notes during the trial. You are not required to do so. Some people find it useful in receiving information and others do not. If you decide to take notes, you do not need to take notes on the instructions on the law that I give you because a printed copy will be provided to you when you retire to deliberate and consider your verdict in this case.

A word of caution. There may be a tendency to attach undue importance to matters that you have written down. There may by a tendency to rely on your notes to the exclusion of your other recollections. A jury's verdict should be the result of the collective memories of all the jurors, and you should not abandon your recollection solely because of what is contained in your notes.

There's also a possibility that you become so engrossed in taking your notes that you miss other evidence or how a witness acted, which is also important in determining the truth. Your notes are not evidence, and above all, your memory should be your greatest asset when it's time to deliberate and render a decision in this case. And with that caution, I leave it to your discretion as to whether or not you want to take notes during the trial.

At the end of the trial, when you have reached a verdict and it has been announced in open court, your notes will be gathered by the bailiff. They will not be reviewed by anyone, including the Court, and they will be shredded and destroyed.

A rule of procedure has been invoked called the rule of sequestration. That means that all witnesses that are intended to testify at the trial will remain outside the courtroom until it is their turn to testify. That way they don't hear any of the testimony of any of the other witnesses before providing their own testimony. Those witnesses have also been instructed not to have any discussions amongst themselves about any of the testimony or anything about the trial until they provide their own testimony.

All right. Those are my initial instructions for you, and so we are ready to proceed to opening statements.

Ms. Cappleman, is the State ready to proceed?