Definition
INSTRUCTION carries distinct meanings depending on context. The term appears most prominently in three legal settings:
1. Jury instruction. A direction given by a judge to the jury explaining the applicable law, the elements the jury must find, or the standards it must apply in reaching a verdict. Jury instructions are typically delivered orally at the close of trial and often submitted in written form for use during deliberations. Both parties ordinarily have the right to propose instructions, and a trial court's refusal to give a requested instruction — or the giving of an erroneous one — is a common basis for appeal.
2. Client instructions to counsel. The directions a client gives to their attorney defining the scope, objectives, and limits of the representation. Instructions in this sense govern what a lawyer is authorized to do on a client's behalf. Accepting or declining instructions is a foundational moment in any attorney-client relationship.
3. French criminal procedure (historical). In French law, the preliminary investigative process that preceded a criminal trial. Instruction encompassed examination of the accused, interrogation of witnesses, collection of evidence, and the preparation of a comprehensive dossier for the prosecuting officers. This is the dominant meaning in the historical English-language legal dictionaries, reflecting the heavy influence of French procedural terminology on early Anglo-American legal scholarship.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The act of instructing, teaching, or providing with knowledge; an order or command; directions provided by a manufacturer; or, in legal usage, directions given by a client to a lawyer.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of instructing or furnishing with knowledge; that which instructs — encompassing precepts, teachings, directions, orders, and commands.
The common and legal meanings share a root, but diverge in precision. In ordinary speech, "instructions" can refer to anything from a recipe to a command from a supervisor. In legal usage, "instruction" has hardened into a term of art: when used without qualification in a trial context, it almost always means a judge's charge to the jury. The client-to-lawyer meaning (instructions to counsel) is a second distinct legal usage that the common definition only partially captures and that Webster's 1913 does not reflect at all. Researchers who encounter "instruction" in legal sources should not assume the general "teaching" sense without checking context.
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Common Confusion
INSTRUCTION vs. CHARGE: In American practice, "jury instruction" and "jury charge" are often used interchangeably. Technically, the charge refers to the judge's complete address to the jury at the close of trial, while an instruction refers to a single directed statement of law within that charge. In older sources and in some jurisdictions the words are fully synonymous. Researchers should not read substantive distinctions between the two terms in historical materials where no distinction is intended.
INSTRUCTION (French law) vs. INSTRUCTION (jury): Historical legal dictionaries — Black's, Burrill's, and Rapalje & Lawrence — define "instruction" exclusively in its French procedural sense, with no discussion of jury instructions. Modern researchers who look up "instruction" in those sources expecting guidance on jury charges will find nothing useful. The French procedural meaning has largely disappeared from contemporary American legal vocabulary, but it dominates the shelf sources in this corpus.
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Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Requested instruction: An instruction proposed by one of the parties and submitted to the court for consideration.
Pattern instruction (model instruction): A standardized jury instruction approved or published by a court system or bar association for use in common case types. Pattern instructions are designed to reduce error and appellate reversal.
Limiting instruction: An instruction directing the jury to consider certain evidence only for a specified purpose — for example, prior-act evidence admitted to show intent but not to prove propensity.
Curative instruction: An instruction given to correct or neutralize the potential prejudice of improper evidence or argument that has already reached the jury.
Special instruction: Any instruction tailored to the specific facts or legal issues of a particular case, as opposed to a general or pattern instruction.
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Why It Matters in Research
The most significant research trap with "instruction" is the gap between the historical shelf sources and modern legal usage. Every historical dictionary in this corpus defines the term solely through the lens of French criminal procedure. If you are researching jury instructions — far and away the most common legal context in contemporary American practice — these sources offer no guidance and may mislead by omission.
For jury instruction research, the relevant Law Mind resources are the encyclopedia entries on jury trial procedure (empanelment, instructions, deliberation) and closing arguments and verdict. Those entries provide the doctrinal framework that the dictionary sources here cannot supply.
The client-instructions meaning matters most in professional responsibility and agency contexts. When a historical source discusses whether an attorney acted within or beyond "instructions," it almost certainly means the client's directions, not a court order to a jury.
Jurisdictional variation in the form and delivery of jury instructions is substantial and has evolved significantly across time. Federal practice under the Federal Rules of Civil and Criminal Procedure differs from state practice, and the rise of written pattern instructions is a twentieth-century development that older sources do not contemplate.
For products liability research, the instructions-and-warnings meaning is a distinct doctrinal area. Inadequate product instructions can give rise to failure-to-warn claims independent of manufacturing or design defect theories. The Torts encyclopedia entry on Products Liability — Failure to Warn addresses this usage directly.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The four shelf sources speak with one voice: instruction is a term of French criminal procedure. Black's (both editions), Burrill, and Rapalje & Lawrence all define the term as the preliminary investigative process — examination of the accused, interrogation of witnesses, gathering of evidence — that prepares a criminal case for trial. Rapalje & Lawrence and Burrill cite Bouvier directly and are essentially identical. Black's first and second editions expand the definition with additional procedural detail but reach the same conclusion.
What is notable is what all four sources omit entirely: any reference to jury instructions or to client instructions to counsel. This omission reflects the state of legal lexicography at the time of these editions, when the French procedural meaning was the term's primary technical significance in legal literature and the jury instruction had not yet become a discrete subject of sustained doctrinal treatment in dictionaries.
The historical sources are therefore useful as a window into French-influenced procedural terminology and into how nineteenth-century legal writers understood the word, but they are not a reliable guide to how the term functions in twenty-first-century American legal practice.
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Jurisdictional Note
Jury instruction practice varies significantly between federal and state courts and among state systems. Some jurisdictions require that all instructions be submitted in writing to jurors during deliberations; others do not. The timing of instructions — whether given before opening statements, before closing arguments, or only at the close of evidence — also varies. Researchers working with trial records or appellate decisions should identify the jurisdiction's specific procedural rules before drawing conclusions about what instructions were required, permitted, or waived.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Jury Trial — Empanelment, Instructions, and Deliberation (The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia)
Closing Arguments, Jury Instructions, and Verdict (The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia)
Products Liability — Failure to Warn (Inadequate Warnings and Instructions) (The Law Mind Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia)
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