Monforto v. State

NORTHCUTT, Judge.

Of a trial court’s many difficult duties, few are so delicate as instructing a deadlocked jury. Such instructions are potentially coercive, and the giving of them requires extreme sensitivity to the potential for impinging on a criminal defendant’s fundamental right to a trial by jury. In this case, Daniel Monforto contends that his convictions for robbery and burglary were tainted by fundamental error in the trial court’s instructions to a deadlocked jury. We agree and reverse.

After both parties rested in Monforto’s one-day trial, the trial court and the attorneys discussed…