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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 2024 updates are available for free download here. Among this year’s changes are new instructions for crimes recently defined by the state legislature, including patient brokering, street takeovers, new death by distribution offenses, the new misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, and elevated versions of the offense of breaking or entering a motor vehicle. Several existing criminal instructions also have been amended, including the instruction for substituting alternate jurors after deliberations begin (N.C.P.I. – Crim. 100.40). That instruction now includes a note well advising of the ruling in State v. Chambers, 292 N.C. App. 459 (2024), and the stay entered by the North Carolina Supreme Court.

Check the supplement. Please note that the School’s online library containing individual pdfs of the pattern jury instructions has not yet been updated. (That process should be completed in the next three weeks.) Until then, when preparing instructions, you should consult the list of new and updated instructions in the applicable supplement to determine that you have the latest version.

Thanks to the committee and its staff. As previously mentioned, the pattern jury instructions are created and compiled by the North Carolina Conference of Superior Court Judges Committee on Pattern Jury Instructions. The committee and its staff convene monthly between August and May, typically on Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings. Members of the 2023-24 committee and its staff are listed below.

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