the most basic rights guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment is the right of the accused to be present at every stage of his trial. Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 338, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970). In addition, the concept of a jury trial, fundamental to this country’s constitutional system of criminal justice, includes the idea that the jury conducts its deliberations under the supervision of a judge who instructs them on the relevant law. Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U.S. 1, 13-14, 19 S.Ct. 580, 43 L.Ed. 873 (1899). One of the basic tenets of the right to a trial by jury, in turn, is that the defendant is entitled to be present when the jury receives instructions regarding the law. See United States v. U.S. Gypsum Co., 438 U.S. 422, 462, 98 S.Ct. 2864, 57 L.Ed.2d 854 (1978) (<HOLDING>). Any outside source that influences the jury’s
holding that it was reversible error for the trial judge to engage in ex parte communications with the jury foreman which amounted to supplemental instructions to the jury without opportunity for counsel for the defense to clear up any confusion those supplemental instructions may have caused holding that counsel may not be deemed ineffective under strickland for failing to object to jury instructions where this court previously upheld validity of those instructions holding that a jury is presumed to follow the trial courts instructions holding that if jury instructions viewed as a whole fairly state the applicable law to the jury the failure to give particular instructions will not be error holding that a supplemental instruction did not amount to reversible error when it merely clarified a point of law on which the jury had already been instructed