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The standard jury instruction under Florida law for vehicular homicide require that prior to the defendant being found guilty of the offense, the jury must find that he operated the motor vehicle in a reckless manner likely to cause the great bodily injury or death to another person.

Florida Standard Jury Instruction (Crim.) 3.7, which is used when requested by a defendant who pleads not guilty, provides in pertinent part that: The defendant has entered a plea of not guilty. This means you must presume or believe the defendant is innocent.

The new law, which went into effect as soon as the governor signed it, allows capital punishment in Florida with a jury recommendation of at least 8-4 in favor of execution. Only three states out of the 27 that impose the death penalty do not require unanimity.

Prior to this recommendation, the new law requires jurors to unanimously agree on at least one aggravating factor for a death sentence. To aid the jurors in this task, prosecutors are now required to spell out, before a murder trial begins, the reasons why a death sentence should be imposed.

The court may not impose a sentence of death unless each juror individually finds the defendant should be sentenced to death. Even when death is a possible sentence, each juror must decide based on his or her own moral assessment whether life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, or death, should be imposed.

Instruction 416.30, Waiver, explains to the jury that waiver can be oral, written, or stem from the parties' conduct. To waive a right, the claimant 1) had to know the supposedly waived right existed; 2) knew the defendant could have performed the waived right; and 3) ?freely and intentionally? gave up the right.