Not Really

Want to know what's messed up? These extensive jury instructions cannot, by law, be given to the jury in written form to assist them with their deliberations. They can only request to have some part, or all, of the instructions read back to them by the judge.

— Stewart Bishop (@stewartbishop) May 29, 2024

Nope.

The real point of complex jury instructions is for the sake of the law.

Juries are finders of facts. As such, their word is final on the facts of the case (unless you’re Justice Alito and the facts involve a contract football coach praying on the football field).

Appellate courts review application of the law. Jury instructions apply the law, and are reviewable by higher courts. Who can’t second guess the jury, but who CAN say the jury was improperly instructed.

Frankly, jury instructions can give the lawyers involved fits over what is instructed. Juries aren’t expected to make heads or tails of them. Juries also aren’t expected to answer questions of law. Which is why they don’t get the jury instructions to chew over like a bone. Or to exegete like rabbinic (or German, for that matter), scholars. Or, to make it perfectly fair, to deconstruct like French philosophers.

They have to find the facts.The questions they answer are about the facts, not about the law. Judges will decide whether they were properly instructed in the law.

Ye gods and little fishes, if you gave the jury the written instructions (which, yes, read like stereo instructions), they’d never reach a conclusion on anything.