New Pattern Jury Instructions Available Along with Updated Online Library

Each year the School of Government publishes new and revised pattern jury instructions for civil, criminal, and motor vehicle negligence cases. Those instructions are created and compiled by the North Carolina Conference of Superior Court Judges Committee on Pattern Jury Instructions. The 2023 updates are available for free download here.  Among this year’s changes are new civil instructions related to breach of fiduciary duty and new and revised criminal instructions for the arson offenses created by S.L. 2022-8 and for the changes to organized retail theft crimes enacted by S.L. 2022-30. Keep reading to learn about improvements to the School’s online library of pattern jury instructions and about the School’s plan to publish comprehensive, searchable electronic versions of pattern jury instructions in future years. Online library now has titles. For many years the School has published a free online library of pattern jury instructions in pdf format. The library was helpful but was not particularly easy to navigate as instructions were listed by number without an explanatory title. We have added those titles for each instruction in all three categories, which should make it easier to find what you are looking for. Updating your hard copy. If you have a hard copy of the instructions that you would like to update, you can do so by printing out the pdf file of the 2023 update, hole-punching it, and inserting it into the appropriate three-ring binder. Future publication plans. Moving forward, the School will no longer sell hard copies of the pattern [...]