Can a defendant appeal an instruction in which the term "conspire" or "conspiracy" was not defined?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Mendez, B272175 (Cal. App. 2017):

Defendant, however, seeks to avoid application of the forfeiture doctrine by asserting these asserted errors affected his substantial rights. (Pen. Code, 1259 ["Upon an appeal taken by the defendant, the appellate court may, without exception having been taken in the trial court, review any question of law involved in any . . . instruction . . . which affected the substantial rights of the defendant"]; People v. Covarrubias (2016) 1 Cal.5th 838, 904-905 ["To the extent defendant claims the instructions affected his substantial rights, we may review his claim under section 1259 despite his failure to raise the issue below"]; Rundle, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 151 ["We agree that defendant's failure to request that the trial court further define the meaning of the term "sexual intercourse," which is the element set forth in the statute ( 261, subd. (a)), forfeited his claim on appeal. . . . [] Of course, despite defendant's failure to preserve this issue for appeal, we may review his claim of instructional error to the extent his substantial rights were affected"].) We agree we may review unobjected-to instructional errors insofar as the errors affect a defendant's substantial rights, but we forego a detailed exploration of these two contentions in favor of brief discussions

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of why we believe defendant's substantial rights were not affected. (See generally People v. Andersen (1994) 26 Cal.App.4th 1241, 1249 ["[T]he failure to object to an instruction in the trial court waives any claim of error unless the claimed error affected the substantial rights of the defendant, i.e., resulted in a miscarriage of justice, making it reasonably probable the defendant would have obtained a more favorable result in the absence of error"].)

B. No Instruction Defining "Conspire" or "Conspiracy" Was Necessary

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