The California Criminal Jury instructions have been translated into plain English.

This was a heroic accomplishment.

We all know lawyers speak their own language, legalese. It can difficult to get them to speak in plain English. I confess to a guilty pleasure when a "trespass quare clausum fregit" rolls off my tongue.  These seminars are made for people like me. 

Translation from legalese to English can be difficult and tricky. An appropriately thin book, Plain English for Lawyers is a classic that belongs on every lawyer’s reference bookshelf. Its premise is that translation is not needed if lawyers speak and write in simple English. Although, every now and then, legalese has its own offbeat humor.

Seriously, plain English Legal writing is a growing movement and should be encouraged. Legalese often develops when fossilization is mistaken for standardization. Jury instructions are a good example of this process. These are read over and over again and were standardized decades ago. Any slight modification, well intentioned or accidental, is grounds for reversal. Trial judges, for good reason, are reluctant to mess with jury instructions.

That’s why the CALJIC instructions are such an accomplishment.

Here’s one comparison between the old legalese version and the new plain English:

OLD: The law does not undertake to measure in units of time the length of the period during which the thought must be pondered before it can ripen into an intent to kill which is truly deliberate and premeditated.

NEW: The length of time the person spends considering whether to kill does not alone determine whether the killing is deliberate and premeditated.

The judges and attorneys working on this project performed a real service to the profession and ultimately to justice.

Posted by Joseph R. McFaul on Monday, September 26, 2005 at 00:00 Comments Closed (0)

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