Kentucky

Stds of Review: Jury instructions

By Michael Stevens

The Kentucky Supreme Court has addressed appellate review of instructional error as follows: The rule is that generally an erroneous instruction is presumed to be prejudicial to appellant, and the burden is upon appellee to show affirmatively from the record that no prejudice resulted; and when the appellate court cannot determine from the record that the verdict was not influenced by the erroneous instruction, the judgment will be reversed. Drury v. Spalding, 812 S.W.2d 713, 717 (Ky. 1991), quoting Prichard v. Kitchen, 242 S.W.2d 988, 992 (Ky. 1951) (internal quotation marks omitted.).

Full post as published by Kentucky Cases on February 20, 2011 (boomark / email).