DeFrance

When Stephan Elaine Brophy tried to stop defendant Curtis Bryant DeFrance from stealing her son’s car, defendant ran over Brophy and killed her. Defendant was convicted by jury of first degree murder (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a)) with a robbery special circumstance (Pen. Code, § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)) and a deadly weapon enhancement (Pen. Code, § 12022, subd. (b)(1)), robbery (Pen. Code, § 211), and vehicle theft (Veh. Code, § 10851, subd. (a)). He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus one year.

In this very short murder trial, the trial court solicited a stipulation from counsel that the court reporter need not record the jury instructions. Unfortunately, the jury instructions in the clerk’s transcript do not accurately reflect the instructions given to the jury. Defendant contends the absence of an accurate record of the oral instructions violates due process and the error was not cured by the attempt to settle the record. We strongly discourage the practice of not recording the oral instructions given to the jury, which practice only gives rise to the problems present in this case. We find, however, that on this record, no prejudicial…