Massa, J.
The purpose of a jury instruction “is to inform the jury of the law applicable to the facts without misleading the jury and to enable it to comprehend the case clearly and arrive at a just, fair, and correct verdict.” Campbell v. State, 19 N.E.3d 271, 277 (Ind. 2014). Because the challenged instruction here fell short of this objective, we disapprove of its use going forward. But because we find that the jury charge, as a whole, cured the instructional defect, and because the evidence clearly sustained the defendant’s conviction, we affirm the trial court.
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The State charged Batchelor with three crimes: Level-6 felony resisting law enforcement by fleeing, Level-6 felony battery on a police officer, and Class-A misdemeanor resisting arrest. See Indiana Code §§ 35-44.1-3-1(a)(3), (b)(1)(A) (2014) (felony resisting); I.C. §§ 35-42-2-1(b)(1), (d)(2) (2014) (felony battery); I.C. § 35-44.1-3-1(a)(1) (2014) (misdemeanor resisting).
At the conclusion of evidence at trial, the State proposed several jury instructions, including one which defined the act of fleeing, as that term applied to the felony-resisting charge. Under that instruction—Instruction 22—a person “flees” when he or she “attempts to escape from law enforcement or attempts to unnecessarily prolong the time before the person must stop.” Instruction 22 also required the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the “defendant acted with the intent to escape” or, in the alternative, that a “reasonable driver in the Defendant’s position” would have stopped sooner.
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Following deliberations, the jury found Batchelor guilty on all counts and the trial court entered judgment of conviction. Batchelor appealed, arguing that Instruction 22 expanded the definition of fleeing, which invaded the province of the jury and diminished the State’s burden of proof.
In a unanimous opinion, our Court of Appeals reversed the felony resisting conviction while affirming all other convictions. Batchelor v. State, 97 N.E.3d 297, 305 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018), vacated. The panel concluded that the jury instruction, by allowing a conviction based on what a “reasonable driver” would have done, permitted the State to convict Batchelor on a civil negligence standard, resulting in fundamental error. Id. at 303. Both parties unsuccessfully sought rehearing.
We granted the State’s petition to transfer and now address Batchelor’s claim of instructional error as it relates to his felony-resisting conviction. Because he fails to explain how this error affected his felony-battery and misdemeanor-resisting convictions, we summarily affirm those convictions.
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A person commits the crime of resisting law enforcement, a Level 6 felony, when that person, using a vehicle, “knowingly or intentionally . . . flees from a law enforcement officer” after that officer has, “by visible or audible means, including operation of [a] siren or emergency lights, identified himself or herself and ordered the person to stop.” I.C. § 3544.1-3-1.
Although the felony-resisting statute offers no definition of the term “flees,” our Court of Appeals offered some guidance in Cowans v. State, 53 N.E.3d 540 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016), trans. not sought. There, the court affirmed the defendant’s resisting-by-fleeing conviction, rejecting as a mistake of law his belief that he could delay stopping for police due to safety concerns. … While finding “no express sanction” in the resisting statute for delaying a stop due to safety concerns, the panel concluded that a driver with an “adequate justification” may still “have some discretion to choose the location of a stop.” Id. at 544 …
Based on this conclusion, the Cowans panel determined that a defendant charged with resisting would be entitled to a jury instruction defining the word “flee.” Id. at 545–46. …
Instruction 22 tracks this language from Cowans:
A person who fails to stop his vehicle promptly “flees” law enforcement when the person attempts to escape from law enforcement or attempts to unnecessarily prolong the time before the person must stop. It is an issue in this case whether the Defendant attempted to escape or unnecessarily prolonged the time before stopping. The burden is on the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that:
(1) The defendant acted with the intent to escape, or
(2) A reasonable driver in the Defendant’s position would not have felt unsafe under the facts of this case to come to an immediate halt, or
(3) [I]f a reasonable driver in the Defendant’s position would have felt unsafe to come to an immediate halt, the driver would have come to a halt sooner.
App. Vol. III, p.71. (bold emphases added.) ….
To convict under the felony-resisting statute, as noted above, the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant “knowingly or intentionally” fled from a law-enforcement officer after that officer has identified himself and ordered the defendant to stop. I.C. § 35-44.1-3-1. Instruction 22 falls short of this requirement in two ways.
First, by suggesting that the State need only prove the intent to flee based on what a “reasonable driver” would have done, the challenged instruction impermissibly uses a civil negligence standard to establish criminal culpability. …
… Because it permitted the State to convict Batchelor on a lesser mens rea, Instruction 22 misapplied the felony-resisting statute and threatened to relieve the State of its burden to prove the requisite-intent element in violation of due process. See Metcalfe v. State, 715 N.E.2d 1236, 1237 (Ind. 1999) …
Second, Instruction 22 threatened to mislead the jury as an incorrect statement of law. By emphasizing a factual scenario beyond the statutory definition of fleeing—whether “reasonable” safety concerns justified Batchelor’s delay in stopping—Instruction 22 minimized other potentially relevant evidence for the jury to consider (e.g., driving speed or complete stops at intersections).
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Because nothing in the resisting statute defines fleeing as unnecessarily delaying a stop without a reasonable safety concern, Instruction 22 threatened to invade the jury’s province to decide the law and the facts. See Ind. Const. art. 1, sec. 19; Keller v. State, 47 N.E.3d 1205, 1205 (Ind. 2016) …
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Instruction 22, standing alone, threatened to relieve the State of its burden to prove that Batchelor “knowingly or intentionally” fled. But the jury, of course, heard not one but multiple instructions. And the trial court expressly directed the jury “to consider all instructions together,” not to “single out any certain sentence or any individual point or instruction and ignore the others.” …
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The court, in both its preliminary and final jury charges, also gave a comprehensive instruction on the felony-resisting offense. This instruction, virtually identical to Pattern Criminal Jury Instruction 5.3040, enumerates each element of the crime on which the State carried the requisite burden of proof. See 1 Ind. Pattern Jury Instructions: Criminal § 5.3040 (4th ed. 2018). These “elements” instructions “provide a jury with a roadmap to guide decision-making” and are “particularly vital to a jury’s ability to understand and apply the law to the facts.” LaPorte Cmty. Sch. Corp. v. Rosales, 963 N.E.2d 520, 524 (Ind. 2012). Instruction 22, by contrast, is merely a “supplemental, definitional instruction” which attempts— albeit inaccurately—to explain the term “fleeing” as it applies to this case. See id. To the extent that language in Instruction 22 contradicts language in the “elements” instruction, the latter (read twice to the jury) outweighs the former (read only once to the jury).
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Because of its potential to mislead the jury, we expressly disapprove of the Cowans instruction.
The purpose of a jury instruction “is to inform the jury of the law applicable to the facts without misleading the jury and to enable it to comprehend the case clearly and arrive at a just, fair, and correct verdict.” … While the jury charge as a whole here met this objective, we expressly disapprove of the specific Cowans instruction because of its potential to confuse and mislead the jury.
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Going forward, trial courts should use Indiana Pattern Criminal Jury Instruction 5.3040 for the resisting-by-fleeing offense. And while counsel may argue that a defendant’s actions are reasonable or unreasonable, it’s ultimately for the jury to decide whether there’s evidence of knowing or intentional fleeing under the statute.
For the reasons specified above, we affirm the trial court’s conviction of Batchelor for felony resisting. And because he fails to explain how the instructional error affected his felony-battery and misdemeanor-resisting convictions, we summarily affirm those convictions.
Rush, C.J., and David, Slaughter, and Goff, JJ., concur.