The Appellate Division cited only two published cases in the past three decades in which a jury verdict was reversed because the court’s failure to instruct the jury on passion/provocation manslaughter sua sponte, when the defendant did not request the charge, was found to be plain error. Id. at 297 n.16, 298 n.17 (citing State v. Viera (App. Div. 2001), and State v. Robinson (1994), respectively). In their comprehensive briefing, defendant Timothy Canfield, the State, the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey, and the Attorney General cite only one additional case, State v. Blanks (App. Div. 1998). Given the apparent infrequency of such plain errors, we do not view the Appellate Division’s proposed procedural rule to be critical to protecting otherwise valid jury verdicts from reversal.
It seems the Appellate Division was more concerned with avoiding the work involved with deciding murder conviction appeals then they were with reversing “an otherwise valid jury verdict.” Given the deference that trial courts have under the “plain error” standard and the infrequency of reversals under these circumstances, “otherwise valid” reads like a euphemism for “invalid.”