Jennings v. State

Relying upon a 1934 case and a 1940 case, the Court holds that “a trial judge need not attach a verdict form to the jury charge, but if he does so .... [t]he verdict form then becomes a part of the jury charge.”1 But the Court misunderstands the language in these cases and the historical practice they addressed. In both Riley and Pieratt, the body of the jury charge included instructions regarding the form that the verdict should take.2 But, as was. the' practice then, the jury wrote out its own verdict on a separate piece of paper.3 The “suggested form” that was in the body of the jury…