7.Preliminary Jury Instructions and Impeachment/Incarceration-Disclosure Colloquy

THE COURT: Thank you-all very much. You can be seated.

Ladies and gentlemen, you've been selected and Sworn as the jury to try the case of the State of Florida vs. Sarah Boone. This is a criminal case. Ms. Boone is charged with murder. The definition of the crime charged will be explained to you later.

The State's charging document, which is called an Information, is not evidence and it is not to be considered by you as proof of any guilt.

It is the judge's responsibility to explain the law to you. It is your solemn responsibility to determine if the State proved its accusations beyond a reasonable doubt against Ms. Boone in accordance with the law that I provide to you. Thus, the province of the jury and the province of the Court are well-defined and they do not overlap. This is one of the fundamental principles of our system of justice.

Before proceeding further, it will be helpful if you understand how a trial is conducted. At the beginning of the trial, the attorneys will have an opportunity, if they wish, to make an opening statement. The opening statement gives the attorneys a chance to tell you what evidence they believe will be presented during the trial. What the lawyers say is not evidence and you are not to consider it as such.

Following the opening statements, witnesses will be called to testify under oath. They will be examined and cross-examined by the attorneys. Documents and other exhibits may also be produced as evidence.

After the evidence has been presented, the Court will give you instructions on the law.

The attorneys will then have the opportunity to make closing arguments.

Following the closing arguments by the attorneys, the Court will conclude with the final instructions.

After the final instructions are given, you will then retire to consider your verdict.

You should not form any definite or fixed opinion on the merits of the case until you have heard all of the evidence, the argument of the lawyers, and the instructions on the law by the judge. Until that time, you should not discuss the case amongst yourselves. Your verdict must be based solely on the evidence or lack of evidence and the law.

I now instruct you not to communicate with anyone, including your fellow jurors, about this case. No communication includes no emailing, text messaging, tweeting, blogging, or any other form of communication. You cannot do any research about the case or look up any information about the case.

If you become aware of any violation of any of these rules at all, notify court personnel of the violation.

During the course of the trial, the Court may take recesses and you will be permitted to separate and go about your personal affairs. During these recesses, you must not discuss the case with anyone, nor permit anyone to say anything to you or in your presence about the case. If anyone attempts to say anything to you or in your presence about this case, tell him or her that you are on the jury trying the case and ask that person to stop. If he or she persists, leave that person at once and immediately report the matter to the court deputy who will advise me.

All cell phones, computers, tablets, or other types of electronic devices must be turned off while you are in the courtroom. Turned off means that the phone or other electronic device is actually off and not in a silent or vibrating mode. You may use these devices during recesses, but even then, you may not use your cell phone or electronic device to find out any information about the case or communicate with anyone about the case or the people involved in the case.

Do not take photographs, video recordings, or audio recordings of the proceedings or of your fellow jurors. After each recess, please double-check to make sure your cell phone or electronic device is turned off.

At the end of the case, while you are deliberating, you must not communicate with anyone outside the jury room. You cannot have in the jury room any cell phones, computers, or other electronic devices.

If someone needs to contact you in an emergency, the Court can receive messages and deliver them to you without delay. A contact phone number will be provided to you.

The case must be tried by you only on the evidence presented during the trial in your presence, in the presence of the defendant, the attorneys and the judge. Jurors must not conduct any investigation of their own. This includes reading newspapers, watching television, or using a computer, cell phone, the internet, any electronic device, or any other means at all to get information related to this case or the people and places involved in this case. This applies whether you are in the courthouse, at home, or anywhere else.

You must not visit places mentioned in the trial or use the internet to look at maps or pictures to see any place discussed during the trial.

Jurors must not have discussions of any sort with friends or family members about the case or the people and places involved. So do not let even the closest family members make comments to you or ask questions about the trial.

In this age of electronic communication, I want to stress again that, just as you must not talk about this case face to face, you must not talk about this case by using an electronic device. You must not use phones, computers, or other electronic devices to communicate. Do not send or accept any messages related to this case or your jury service. Do not discuss this case or ask for advice by any means at all, including posting information on an internet website, chat room, or blog.

What are the reasons for these rules? These rules are imposed because jurors must decide the case without distraction and only on the evidence presented in the courtroom. If you investigate, research, or make inquiries on your own, the trial judge has no way to make sure that the information you obtain is proper for the case. The parties, likewise, have no opportunity to dispute or challenge the accuracy of what you find. This is contrary to our judicial system which assures every party the right to ask questions about and challenge the evidence being considered against it and to present argument with respect to that evidence. Any independent investigation by a juror unfairly and improperly prevents the parties from having that opportunity our judicial system promises.

Any juror who violates these restrictions jeopardizes the fairness of these proceedings and a mistrial could result, which would require the entire trial process to start over.

A mistrial is a tremendous expense and inconvenience to the parties, the Court, and the taxpayers. If you violate these rules, you may be held in contempt of court and face sanctions, such as serving time in jail, paying a fine, or both.

In every criminal proceeding, a defendant has the absolute right to remain silent. At no time is it the duty of a defendant to prove her innocence. From the exercise of a defendant's right to remain silent, a jury is not permitted to draw any inference of guilt. And the fact that a defendant did not take the witness stand must not influence your verdict in any manner whatsoever.

The attorneys are trained in the rules of evidence and trial procedure and it is their duty to make all objections they feel are proper. When an objection is made, you should not speculate on the reason why it was made. Likewise, when an objection is sustained or upheld by me, you must not speculate on what might have occurred had the objection not been sustained, nor what a witness might have said had he or she been permitted to answer.

During the trial, it may be necessary to confer with the attorneys out of your hearing to discuss matters that require consideration by me alone. It is impossible to predict when such a conference may be required or how long it will last. When such conferences occur, they will be conducted so as to consume as little of your time as necessary for a fair and orderly trial of the case.

Members of our jury, I have one additional instruction to read to you regarding note-taking.

If you would like to take notes during the trial, you may do so. On the other hand, of course, you are not required to take notes if you do not want to. That would be left up to you individually.

You will be provided with a notepad and pen for your use, if you wish to take notes. Any notes that you take will be for your personal use. However, you should not take them with you from the courtroom. During recesses, the court deputy will take possession of your notes and will return them to you when we reconvene. After you have completed your deliberations, the court deputy will deliver your notes to me. They will be destroyed. No one will ever read your notes. If you take notes, do not get so involved in note-taking that you become distracted from the proceedings. Your notes should be used only as aids to your memory. Whether or not you take notes, you should rely on your memory of the evidence and you should not be unduly influenced by the notes of other jurors. Notes are not entitled to any greater weight than each juror's memory of the evidence.

With that, members of the jury, we will pick up tomorrow morning in Courtroom 12A of the Orange County Courthouse and we will begin with opening statements at that time.

I instruct you to follow the instructions that I have just read to you, including not reading any newspapers or watching the local news, having any conversations with anyone or conducting any independent research or investigation as to the persons, places, things, and charge in this case.

With that, again, I thank you for your service and we will see you in 12 alpha tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m.

THE COURT: Okay. We'll address that in just a moment.

Ma'am, I don't want to go into the specifics of any conversations you have had with any of your attorneys on that issue, I just need to know whether or not you've had those conversations, okay?

Is what your lawyer just represented accurate as to the conversation that you had as to that issue regarding cross-examining your former husband, Brian Boone?

THE COURT: If by some circumstance that somehow becomes relevant, I'm going to ask the State to approach before we even get near addressing that issue in front of our jury, okay?

Ma'am, do you have any other questions for me at this time?

THE COURT: All right. We will see you-all at 9:00 a.m. The Court will conduct its regular docket at 8:30. Thank you.

We're off the record.