The judge, Justice Francis X. Egitto of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, ruled that prosecutors had given improper legal instructions to the grand jury that indicted the officer on March 30.

With regard to the allegations of Freshwater's incorrect teaching of evolution, a high school teacher testified that "she had to reteach science to freshmen after they received improper instruction from eighth-grade teacher John Freshwater."

Rooney claims the judge gave improper instructions to the jury and that government witnesses misled jurors about the reliability of DNA evidence.

The appeals court ruled that because of improper instructions from Judge H. Lee Sarokin it had not been proved that Mrs. Cipollone either saw or believed the ads.

The inquiry also found nursing shortages, improper instructions for medication and inadequate review of records.

In the Lebron case, a Supreme Court judge dismissed the charges because of improper instructions to the grand jury.

The South Carolina Supreme Court had upheld Mr. Yates's conviction, finding that although the jury had been given improper instructions on a crucial element of the case, the error had been "harmless."

Under other Supreme Court precedents, a variety of trial errors, like improper instructions to the jury and mistaken exclusion of certain testimony, can be regarded as harmless if they can be shown not to have affected the outcome.

However, in August 1974, his conviction was overturned on appeal due to the trial judge's improper instructions to the jury.

The state court convictions were overturned in early 1996 when a Federal judge ruled that Lance A. Ito, a state superior court judge who had originally heard the state's case, gave the jury improper instructions.