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California Jury Instructions
Criminal
CALCRIM
User's Guide
Page 1

Volume 1

Guide for Using Judicial Council of
California Criminal Jury
Instructions (“CALCRIM”)

The Judicial Council jury instructions are accurate, designed to be easy to understand, and easy to use. This guide provides an introduction to the instructions and explains conventions and features that will assist in their use.

Judicial Council Instructions Endorsed by Rule of CourtRule 2.1050 of the California Rules of Court provides: “The California jury instructions
approved by the Judicial Council are the official instructions for use in the state of California. . . .

[The Judicial Council endorses these instructions for use and makes every effort to ensure that they accurately state existing law. . . .]

[Use of the Judicial Council instructions is strongly encouraged.”]

Using the Instructions

Bench Notes

The text of each instruction is followed by a section in the Bench Notes titled “Instructional Duty,” which alerts the user to any sua sponte duties to instruct and special circumstances raised by the instruction. It may also include references to other instructions that should or should not be used. In some instances, the directions include suggestions for modification. In the “Authority” section, all of the pertinent sources for the instruction are listed, including secondary source materials. Some of the instructions also have sections containing “Related Issues” and “Commentary.” The Bench Notes also refer to any relevant lesser included offenses. Users should consult the Bench Notes before using an instruction. Italicized notes between angle brackets in the language of the instruction itself signal important issues or choices. For example, in instruction 1750, Receiving Stolen Property, optional element 3 is introduced thus: <Give element 3 when instructing on knowledge of presence of property; see Bench Notes>.

Multiple-Defendant and Multiple-Count Cases

These instructions were drafted for the common case in which a single defendant is on
trial. The HotDocs document assembly program from the Judicial Council’s official
publisher, LexisNexis will, however, modify the instructions for use in multi-defendant
cases. It will also allow the user to name the defendants charged in a particular
instruction if the instruction applies only to some of the defendants on trial in the case.
It is impossible to predict the possible fact combinations that may be present when a
crime is charged multiple times or committed by different defendants against different

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Guide for Using California Criminal Jury Instructions-Page 4-How To Cite

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