There has been some confusion in recent days about why the jurors in Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial, who on Wednesday began deliberating over his fate, weren’t allowed to take a copy of the judge’s legal instructions with them into the jury room.
The answer is simple: The law doesn’t allow it.
The lengthy instructions, which the judge read to jurors right before they started deliberating, are meant to serve as a road map and to help them apply the relevant law to the facts as they have found them. The law is seldom simple, and because the legal theory underpinning the case is complex — and at times confusing — the instructions are also a lot to take in.
But while common sense suggests it would be helpful for jurors to have a copy of the instructions, the judge in the case, Juan M. Merchan, was not allowed to give them one.
That’s why on Thursday, when the jury asked for portions of the testimony they heard during the trial to be read back in court, they also asked to hear portions of the jury instructions again, too.
The prohibition against jurors being provided with a copy of the written legal instructions stems from a 1987 decision by the New York Court of Appeals — the state’s highest court — in a case called People v. Owens, which involved a drug sale.
The court found that “the distribution of written instructions to the jury is not expressly authorized by law, and error in such submissions cannot be deemed harmless,” meaning that providing the instructions would result in a conviction being overturned.
Marc F. Scholl, who served in the Manhattan district attorney’s office for nearly four decades, specializing in white-collar crimes and appeals, said: “Recently, there has been some slight loosening about whether it can be done with the defense’s consent, but it remains a minefield that judges do not want to risk.”
