California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Riley, A132151 (Cal. App. 2012):
Defendant argues the CALCRIM No.362 instruction was improper in light of the evidence based almost entirely on United States v. Littlefield (1st Cir. 1988) 840 F.2d 143 (Littlefield). The Littlefield court considered a "consciousness of guilt" instruction to the jury "that it may consider the circumstantial evidence indicating consciousness of guilt, in light of all other evidence in the case, in determining whether the defendant is guilty." (Id. at p. 148.) The court concluded that the instruction "should not be given when . . . the jury could find the exculpatory statement at issue to be false only if it already believed evidence directly establishing the defendant's guilt." (Id. at p. 149.) To avoid this confusing and "circular" thinking, whereby the jury must first conclude a defendant is guilty in order to find his or her statement to be false and, thus, find evidence of a consciousness of guilt, the court concluded the instruction should only be given when the purportedly false statement is about a collateral matter or is "so incredible that its very implausibility suggests that it was created to conceal guilt." (Ibid.) The Littlefield court held the trial court erred by giving the instruction because it was confusing and encouraged circular thinking under the facts and circumstances of the case (in which defendant's statements could only be found misleading based on expert testimony at trial directly establishing his guilt), but that the error was harmless. (Id. at pp. 148-150.)
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