Help!! All you legal guru’s.

[Msbirds]

I am trying to find additional issues for a post conviction petition. Should there be a jury instruction if a witness is receiving some sort of benefit for their testimony? Something that would express to the jury that this witness has reasons to lie to save themselves. Or are their any legal issues that can be raised if a witness is offered immunity from a crime, and or given assistance for their testimony. Any help or direction will be greatly appreciated.

Ms Bird

[Gryphon]

Yes.
There almost certainly was a jury instruction that had to do with a witness' "bias or motive".
There may be an approroved instrution to deal with "informants".
Getting what's called a tailored or pinpoint instruction in addition to the "boilerplate" approved instruction will be subject to a lot of law, with the usual answer that the defendant can't get that absent some VERY unusual facts.
Doing jury instruction research isn't easy, and means some time in a law library. The place to begin will be a set of approved instructions. Every state will have one, usually in 2 volumes. The index will be horrible. In my state, a set is available online without having to pay a fee. The official sets of instructions also contain annotations that follow teh instructions, which cover how the instruction is to be used and what other instructions are related to it. There is also usually a publication or 2 that are designed to suggest defense instructions; better ones being loose-leaf services that stay on top of new cases coming out of the higher courts.

Originally Posted by Msbirds

I am trying to find additional issues for a post conviction petition. Should there be a jury instruction if a witness is receiving some sort of benefit for their testimony? Something that would express to the jury that this witness has reasons to lie to save themselves. Or are their any legal issues that can be raised if a witness is offered immunity from a crime, and or given assistance for their testimony. Any help or direction will be greatly appreciated.

Ms Bird