The problem of confused jurors rendering poor verdicts has plagued courtrooms in Mississippi and across the country for decades.

Many states — among them Florida, California, Texas and Vermont — have sought to rectify the situation by rewriting jury instructions into plain English...

Now a commission led by Mississippi Supreme Court Justice George C. Carlson Jr. will tackle the issue.

Carlson said his experience as a lawyer, trial judge and appellate judge has shown him that "the focus has not been on the very ones whose understanding of the law is critical to the fair disposition of any case, namely the lay citizens in the jury box."

Jury instructions are the combined effort of prosecutors, defense attorneys and the judge.

Generally, they follow existing "pattern" instructions for each charge. Legal experts say most judges prefer to stick close to boilerplate language because it usually tracks the statutes and has passed muster with appeals courts.

In the 1980s, research found many jurors had difficulty understanding and applying the law to the facts.

The problem was recognized much earlier.

In 1954, Massachusetts District Judge Charles E. Wyzanski Jr. wrote in a civil case that the "object of a charge to a jury is not to satisfy an appellate court that you have repeated the right rigamarole of words, but to try to make jurors who are laymen understand what you are talking about."

More than 50 years later, the work continues.