Did the Trial Court Err in Not Instructing the Jury on Proximate Cause?
Finally, McCarley argues on his cross-appeal that the district court erred when it failed to instruct the jury that his actions had to be the proximate cause of the victim’s injuries to find him guilty of reckless aggravated battery. McCarley suggests the following instruction should have been given: “The fault or lack of fault of [the victim] is a circumstance to be considered along with all the other evidence to determine whether the defendant’s conduct was or was not the direct cause of [the victim’s] injuries.” The failure to give an instruction is clearly erroneous only if the reviewing court reaches a firm conviction that absent the alleged error there was a real possibility the jury would have returned a different verdict. See State v. Pabst, 273 Kan. 658, 660, 44 P.3d 1230, cert. denied 537 U.S. 959 (2002). The jury instructions clearly informed the jury that in order to convict McCarley of reckless aggravated battery, he must have “caused great bodily harm or disfigurement” to
