Posted: April 8, 2025
Criminal Jury Instructions – Comment Period Closes May 5th, 2025
The following instruction has been amended or created. The Committee requests feedback on the proposed instruction:
CR1002: Actual Physical Control
CR1016: Drinking Alcoholic Beverage While Operating a Motor Vehicle
CR1017: Open Container Instruction
CR1017A: Definition of Passenger Compartment
Please reference the instruction(s) in your comments. Although these instructions are subject to a comment period, they are now ready for use. The Model Criminal Jury Instructions Committee will consider all comments made during the comment period and may revise the instructions as appropriate.
CR1017A defines “passenger compartment” by essentially quoting the statutory language. But in doing so, it retains the ambiguity of the original statutory language. Neither the statute nor the instruction address the issue of “cargo” space in SUVs and minivans.
The “area of the vehicle normally occupied by the operator and passengers” seems like a clear reference to the seating areas of the vehicle. But the definition is muddied by the language that follows (both in the statute and in the instruction).
Is cargo space more like a trunk, or is it “accessible to the operator and passengers” while traveling?
CR1017 – “Contains” or “Contained”?
The difference seems obvious if you already understand the statute. But to a lay reader, the difference has the potential to create confusion.
The statute (section 41-6a-526) clearly makes it a crime to possess an open container that “contains an alcoholic beverage” But in using the past-tense “contained” the instruction could be read as including a container that previously “contained” alcohol.
Do “empty” beer cans qualify as an “open container” if they still contain some residue (not enough to actually drink, but enough to show that the cans previously “contained” an alcoholic beverage)?
There are in fact police officers in Utah who would cite a person for a garbage bag full of essentially empty beer cans. It is not merely a hypothetical issue.