2.4 Judicial Notice

            The court has decided to accept as proved the fact that [state fact]. You must accept this fact as true. 

Comment            

            An instruction regarding judicial notice should be given at the time notice is taken. In a civil case, the Federal Rules of Evidence permit the judge to determine that a fact is sufficiently undisputed to be judicially noticed and requires that the jury be instructed that it is required to accept that fact. Fed. R. Evid. 201(f). In a criminal case, however, the court must instruct the jury that it may or may not accept the noticed fact as conclusive. Id.; see United States v. Chapel, 41 F.3d 1338, 1342 (9th Cir. 1994) (in a criminal case, “the trial court must instruct ‘the jury that it may, but is not required to, accept as conclusive any fact judicially noticed’” (citing Fed. R. Evid. 201(g))).

Revised March 2025