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8.5-3 Falsely Reporting an Incident Resulting in Serious Physical Injury or Death -- § 53a-180a
Revised to December 1, 2007
The defendant is charged [in count __] with falsely reporting an incident resulting in serious physical injury or death. The statute defining this offense reads in pertinent part as follows:
a person is guilty of falsely reporting an incident resulting in serious physical injury or death when such person commits the crime of (falsely reporting an incident in the first degree / falsely reporting an incident in the second degree) and such false report results in the serious physical injury or death of another person.
For you to find the defendant guilty of this charge, the state must prove the following elements beyond a reasonable doubt:
Element 1 - Committed falsely
reporting an incident in the first or second degree
The first element is that the
defendant committed the crime of falsely reporting an incident in the (first /
second) degree. <See instruction for underlying crime:>
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§ 53a-180 (a) (1): Falsely Reporting an Incident in the First Degree, Instruction 8.5-1.
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§ 53a-180 (a) (2): Falsely Reporting an Incident in the First Degree, Instruction 8.5-2.
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§ 53a-180c: Falsely Reporting an Incident in the Second Degree, Instruction 8.5-5.
Element 2 - Resulted in serious
physical injury or death
The second element is that the false
report resulted in the serious physical injury or death of another person.
"Physical injury" means impairment of physical condition or pain. "Serious physical injury" is something more serious than mere physical injury. It is more than a minor or superficial injury. It is defined by statute as "physical injury that creates a substantial risk of death, or that causes serious disfigurement, serious impairment of health or serious loss or impairment of the function of any bodily organ."
"Resulted in" simply means that such serious physical injury or death was in fact caused by the defendant's false report or that the false report set in motion the chain of events leading to such forbidden result. <See Proximate Cause, Instruction 2.6-1.>
Conclusion
In summary, the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that <insert the concluding summary from the instruction for the underlying crime> and that the result of the false report was the (serious physical injury / death) of another person.
If you unanimously find that the state
has proved beyond a reasonable doubt each of the elements of falsely reporting
an incident resulting in serious physical injury or death, then you shall find
the defendant guilty. On the other hand, if you unanimously find that the state
has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt any of the elements, you shall
then find the defendant not guilty.