M Civ JI 97.31 Duties of Judge and Jury

(1) Members of the jury, the evidence and arguments in this case are finished, and I will now instruct you on the law. That is, I will explain the law that applies to this case.

(2) Remember that you have taken an oath to return a true and just verdict, based only on the evidence and my instructions on the law. You must not let sympathy or prejudice influence your decision.

(3) It is my duty to instruct you on the law. You must take the law as I give it to you. If a lawyer says something different about the law, follow what I say. At various times, I have already given you some instructions about the law. You must take all my instructions together as the law you are to follow. You should not pay attention to some instructions and ignore others.

(4) As jurors, you must decide what the facts of this case are. You must think about all the evidence and then decide what each piece of evidence means and how important you think it is. This includes whether you believe what each of the witnesses said.

(5) To sum up, it is your job to decide what the facts of the case are, to apply the law as I give it to you, and, in that way, to decide the case.

History

M Civ JI 97.31 was added March 2005.