Section 3515 | CALCRIM (Jury Instructions)

•
Instructional Requirements. People v. Beagle (1972) 6 Cal.3d 441, 456 [99
Cal.Rptr. 313, 492 P.2d 1].
SECONDARY SOURCES
5 Witkin & Epstein, California Criminal Law (4th ed. 2012) Criminal Trial, § 727.
4 Millman, Sevilla & Tarlow, California Criminal Defense Practice, Ch. 85,
Submission to Jury and Verdict, § 85.20 (Matthew Bender).
CALCRIM No. 3515
POST-TRIAL: CONCLUDING
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3516. Multiple Counts: Alternative Charges for One Event—Dual
Conviction Prohibited
<Give this paragraph when the law does not specify which crime must be
sustained or dismissed if the defendant is found guilty of both.>
[The defendant is charged in Count
with
<insert
name of alleged offense> and in Count
with
<insert
name of alleged offense>. These are alternative charges. If you find the
defendant guilty of one of these charges, you must find (him/her) not
guilty of the other. You cannot find the defendant guilty of both.]
<Give the following paragraph when the defendant is charged with both theft
and receiving stolen property offenses based on the same incident.>
[The defendant is charged in Count
with
<insert
theft offense> and in Count
with
<insert receiving
stolen property offense>. You must first decide whether the defendant is
guilty of
<insert name of theft offense>. If you find the
defendant guilty of
<insert name of theft offense>, you must
return the verdict form for
<insert name of receiving stolen
property offense> unsigned. If you find the defendant not guilty of
<insert theft offense> you must then decide whether the defendant is
guilty of
<insert name of receiving stolen property offense>.]
New January 2006; Revised June 2007, October 2010, April 2011
BENCH NOTES
Instructional Duty
The court has a sua sponte duty to give this instruction where the defendant is
charged in the alternative with multiple counts for a single event. (See People v.
Allen (1999) 21 Cal.4th 846, 851 [89 Cal.Rptr.2d 279, 984 P.2d 486]; People v.
Jaramillo (1976) 16 Cal.3d 752, 757 [129 Cal.Rptr. 306, 548 P.2d 706].) This
instruction applies only to those cases in which the defendant may be legally
convicted of only one of the alternative charges. See dual conviction list in Related
Issues section below.
If the evidence raises the issue whether the same act or single event underlies both a
theft conviction and a receiving stolen property conviction, this may be a question
for the jury and the instruction should be modified accordingly.
If the defendant is charged with both theft and receiving stolen property, and the
jury informs the court that it cannot reach a verdict on the theft count, the court
may then instruct the jury to consider the receiving stolen property count.
If the defendant is charged with multiple counts for separate offenses, give
CALCRIM No. 3515, Multiple Counts: Separate Offenses.
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