How have the courts treated a defense counsel's request to give a jury a "clarifying instruction on what is not included in the ambit of the statutory prohibition on pyramid charts"?

As noted above, a defendant is entitled to have the trial court give a clarifying instruction where it is supported by substantial evidence. (People v. Estrada, supra, 11 Cal.4th at p. 579, 46 Cal.Rptr.2d 586, 904 P.2d 1197.) Here, however, based on the evidence, which clearly established that appellants were engaged in operating the endless chain scheme, further instruction on what was not included in the ambit of the statutory prohibition was unnecessary. Notwithstanding the jury's subsequent inquiry, we find no error in the trial court's refusal of the special instruction at the time it was offered. ⁵

III. The trial court properly refused to impose sanctions for a discovery violation.

During cross-examination, a prosecution witness mentioned the existence of pyramid charts she had kept in her possession and had not turned over to the police. The witness was ordered to bring them to court; it appears that more than one witness may have provided such charts to the prosecution at this time, and the prosecutor turned copies of these charts over to defense counsel. After several additional charts were produced by witnesses, the [62 Cal.App.4th 472] prosecutor provided them to counsel for appellants as well. Appellants moved for dismissal under Brady v. Maryland (1963) 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215, claiming a discovery violation, in that this material was exculpatory because some of the charts bore the names of people other than appellants as chairmen. Appellants asked, in the alternative, that the jury be instructed that the prosecutor engaged in misconduct.