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Originally published, San Francisco Daily Journal, December 18, 2003. Reprinted with permission.
NOCALL Update: Your Plain English Guide to the New Plain English Jury Instructions
By
Sara A. Fox, MLS, Law Librarian, Severson & Werson
Adopted
in July 2003 by the Judicial Council, the new “plain
English” jury instructions, popularly known as CACI (“Kay-Cee”),
will impact your library's collection. A few basics
and some comparisons with BAJI:
Are
the CACI instructions the official civil instructions in
California?
Yes. CRC
855 states in part (emphasis added): “The
California jury instructions approved by the Judicial
Council are the official instructions for use
in the state
of California . . . . Use of the Judicial Council instructions
is strongly encouraged.“
See also
CRC 6.58, ”Advisory Committee on Civil Jury Instructions“ (See,
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/jury/civiljuryinstructions/rule_
of_court.htm for the full text of Rules 855 and 6.58).
How many new
instructions are there?
The Judicial
Council has adopted appropriately 800 new instructions.
You can tell that you are looking at a CACI instruction,
and not a BAJI, because BAJI is numbered as a single
digit with a decimal (1.10, 1.20) while CACI is numbered
in a series of 100 (100, 200).
Who is publishing
CACI?
BAJI is
a product of the LA Superior Court, published by West Group
Publishing, which holds the copyright. CACI was the result of
a Judicial Council task force and is being officially published
by LexisNexis. A significant difference is that CACI is not
copyrighted. LexisNexis acts as the Judicial Council's publisher
of choice in this matter, however, any printer is free to propagate
the instructions. As a result, CACI has been published in book
and electronic form by LexisNexis, Westgroup, AccessLaw, and
is even available COMPLETE and FREE on the
California courts website at http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/reference/documents/civiljuryinst.pdf.
A
few weeks ago I received a two-volume, blue covered set
from LexisNexis and one volume, red covered book from
West Group and both were claiming to be the new CACI
instructions. What does this mean?
As stated
above, currently both vendors are publishing the instructions,
and what you noticed are differences
in printing styles. LexisNexis choose to publish the
instructions in two volumes, while Westgroup came up with
a formatting scheme that allowed the instructions to be printed
as a handy one volume. The content is identical (minus
typographical and other printing errors), so either version
will suit your needs. Choose the one that you like best.
Should I discard
BAJI, 9th edition?
No! Well,
I wouldn't. Rule 855(e) leaves room for the use
of other instructions, as necessary and appropriate. “...[I]t
is recommended that the judge use the Judicial Council
instruction unless he or she finds that a different instruction
would more accurately state the law and be understood
by jurors.”
Also,
the lengthy appeals process in California virtually assures
that litigators in your firm will be debating issues arising
out of cases where BAJI was used for many years to come.
We
have been using Westgroup's BAJI Jury Instruction Selector
product to generate instructions and verdict forms.
Will I need to switch to another product?
No. BAJI
Jury Instruction Selector is currently a misnomer,
as the latest update to Selector actually includes CACI.
If you received this update and have loaded it, then simply
open Selector and scroll down. After BAJI ends, the CACI
instructions are listed.
LexisNexis
does have a competing product, using their Hot
Docs template software. Hot Docs for jury instructions generates
CACI forms only (Westgroup still holds the copyright
to BAJI, remember). Do not confuse the software with
the content. No matter which product you use, BAJI Selector
or LexisNexis Hot Docs, you will be able to generate
CACI instructions and verdict forms. Which software
product you use to is up to you. I recommend evaluating
both.
For more information
about the new jury instructions and the software products mentioned
here, see:
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/jury/civiljuryinstructions/index.htm
http://west.thomson.com/
(search for CACI)
http://www.lexisnexis.com/hotdocs/
http://bookstore.lexis.com/bookstore/catalog
(search for CACI)
http://www.accesslaw.com/pdf/CACIOrder.pdf
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