FORECITE annotates both sets of California criminal jury instructions, CALJIC and CALCRIM. FORECITE combs through case law with thoughtful and thorough commentary to help criminal law practitioners avoid the standard instructions’ notorious shortcomings. It identifies potential issues, including changes in the law that are not addressed by CALJIC and CALCRIM, areas of potential reversible error, required sua sponte instructions that were omitted, and instructs on how to preserve constitutional issues for review on appeal. FORECITE also covers lesser included offenses and is described as California’s only compendium of such offenses. FORECITE suggests replacement language and includes pre-drafted instructions and supportive points and authorities.
FORECITE is a tool provided by James Publishing, and is available in the library via Bloomberg Law on public access computer #5. The public access computers provide each patron with two hours of free legal research per day.
sflawlibraryblog 