Appraicio v. State
Annotate this CaseAfter a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of second-degree assault in connection with an attack on his girlfriend. The court of special appeals affirmed. At issue before the Court of Appeals was whether the trial court acted within its discretion in responding to a jury question concerning evidence that was not presented at trial. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the trial court acted within its discretion in crafting the jury response it did, as (1) trial courts have a duty to answer, as directly as possible, the questions posed by jurors; (2) the circuit court's response in this case closely tracked a pattern jury instruction given earlier; (3) the court's answer did not contradict the trial judge's earlier instructions; and (4) the answer given allowed the jury to draw what inferences it might from the evidence without the court impermissibly suggesting what inferences to draw.
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