Opinion ID: 2059026
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Jury Instructions on Principals in the Second Degree.

Text: The presiding justice instructed the jury on the elements of felonious homicide punishable as murder. He followed this with an instruction on criminal liability as a principal in the first or second degree. Defendant Bradbury argues that there is no evidence upon which he can be found guilty of murder as a principal in the second degree. We find no merit in this contention. Three witnesses testified to admissions of the defendant, that David Bradbury had shot Randy Blanchard in the presence of Gary Mahaney. A fourth witness testified that Mahaney said he had shot a man, but the testimony does not mention Bradbury's presence at the shooting. Defendant contends that the jury must believe only one of the accounts of the shooting, neither of which places him in the position of a principal in the second degree. This Court has recently stated, however, that the fact-finder has the prerogative selectively to accept or reject testimony presented in terms of the credibility of the witnesses or the internal cogency of the content. In Re Fleming, Me., 431 A.2d 616, 618 (1981). Therefore, the jury might readily have believed both the testimony which had Mahaney committing the murder and that which placed the defendants together at the time of the events.