NOVEMBER 2025 | 27 THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL Statements or opinions expressed in the Oklahoma Bar Journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Oklahoma Bar Association, its officers, Board of Governors, Board of Editors or staff. evidence,4 credibility of witnesses5 and how to deliberate6) to niche (i.e., transferred intent in an assault and battery case,7 reenactment evidence8 and substantial erosion of parent-child relationship9), they don’t cover everything. The committees simply can’t contemplate every possible scenario, legal theory and evidentiary ruling. When the OUJI is silent on a particular issue, the parties, in concert with the court, need to devise a novel jury instruction. There are three main sources regularly relied on by courts when faced with instructing a jury outside of uniform instructions: 1) non-OUJI instructions previously given (and potentially blessed by the appellate courts) in Oklahoma district courts, 2) pattern instructions from other jurisdictions and 3) novel instructions drafted from relevant case law. Instructions given in other cases. There’s not always a need to reinvent the wheel. While matters of first impression do arise – typically because of new statutes or new interpretations of existing statutes – most cases are variations on a theme, and a substantially similar case has been litigated previously. In such cases, the instructions given in those prior cases can be invaluable. Proposing the language from those instructions, or lightly tailored versions of that language, can not only give you a significant head start, but your judge will also have the comfort of knowing they are not out on a limb. This is especially true when that instruction was given by the same judge or a sister court and withstood appellate scrutiny as a correct statement of law. Depending on the type of instruction requested, it may be beneficial to look outside of Oklahoma as well. Instructions grounded in constitutional principles or in statutes that mirror Oklahoma’s,10 for example, may likely carry persuasive weight for a judge confronted with no applicable OUJI and a dearth of previous in-state examples. But be careful. When using instructions from other jurisdictions, you will need to reconcile any textual or doctrinal differences to avoid inaccurately phrasing the state of the law in Oklahoma.
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