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CHAPEL, Judge, specially concurring:
I concur with the Court’s decision in this case to reverse and remand for a new trial. However, I would take this opportunity to abandon the use of the flight instruction in criminal trials in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Instruction, OUJI-CR 806, cannot be made acceptable by minor changes in wording because there is no valid reason to ever give such an instruction.
First, the instruction “serves no real purpose, as it is a particularization of the general charge on circumstantial evidence, and as the state is free to use circumstantial evidence of flight to argue the defendant’s guilt.” Cameron v. State, 256 Ga. 225, 345 S.E.2d 575, 578 (1986) (Bell, J., Concurring).
More importantly, however, evidence that a person left the scene of an alleged crime proves only that he or she departed. “... [I]t is a matter of common knowledge that men who are entirely innocent do sometimes fly from the scene of a crime through fear of being apprehended as the guilty parties, or from an unwillingness to appear as witnesses.” Alberty v. U.S., 162 U.S. 499, 16 S.Ct. 864, 868, 40 L.Ed. 1051 (1896).
1 To infer*688 guilt from departure is not a leap I am prepared to sanction.. The Supreme Court has "consistently doubted the probative value in criminal trials of evidence
*688 that the accused fled the scene of an actual or supposed crime.” Wong Sun v. U.S., 371 U.S. 471, 483 n. 10, 83 S.Ct. 407, 415 n. 10, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963).
Document Info
Docket Number: F-90-860
Judges: Johnson, Lumpkin, Lane, Lumpkin'S, Chapel, Strubhar
Filed Date: 12/15/1993
Precedential Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 11/13/2024