Jury Instructions

* Re “Say What, Your Honor?” Sept. 7: As American literacy continues to plummet, we find ourselves bombarded with “pictographs” rather than text on everything from stereo instructions to street signs, in order to accommodate the lowest common denominator. At restaurants we now just point at a picture of what we wish to order, while on the corner that glowing red hand on what used to be a “Don’t Walk” sign tips us off to the danger of cross traffic.

So now jurors can’t understand big words like “preponderance of the evidence”? Perhaps the proposed “simplified” jury instructions don’t go far enough. Maybe what is needed is to have the instructions delivered on a big-screen TV in an easy-to-grasp cartoon starring the Rugrats.

STEPHEN C. LEE

La Habra