Opinion ID: 1847325
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 23

Heading: the court's invitation to the jurors to find jerome guilty of capital murder on the basis of any single act connected with the charged offense erroneously relieved the state of its burden of proof.

Text: ś 152. Jerome next complains that instruction C-CR-3 allowed the jury to find him guilty of capital murder under a theory of accomplice liability if it determined that he committed any act which is an element of the crime or immediately connected with it or leading to its commission[.] Jerome argues that the instruction allowed the jury to convict him of capital murder, in violation of Mississippi law [5] , even if the jury found he was merely an accessory after the fact. He gives the example that if he merely helped dispose of the cash register or money stolen from the store, but had no idea a robbery was going to occur, the instruction still allowed him to be found guilty of capital murder. Jerome argues that the trial court's use of the phrase, immediately connected, allowed for just such an occurrence. ś 153. First, this issue is procedurally barred for failure to raise it in the trial court. Ballenger, 667 So.2d at 1259; Foster v. State, 639 So.2d 1263, 1270 (Miss.1994); Mitchell v. State, 609 So.2d 416, 422 (Miss. 1992). This issue is also without merit. The portion of Instruction C-CR-3 to which Jerome is objecting to here actually reads as follows: The Court instructs the Jury that each person present at the time and consenting to and encouraging the commission of a crime, and knowingly, wilfully and feloniously doing any act which is an element of the crime, or immediately connected with it, or leading to its commission, is as much a principal as if he had, with his own hand, committed the whole offense. This instruction clearly informs the jury that to be found guilty under a theory of accomplice liability, the defendant had to be present at the time of the crime, consenting and encouraging its commission. This precludes the jury from finding Jerome guilty of capital murder if he was only an accessory after the fact. Furthermore, an identical instruction was upheld by this Court in Carr v. State, 655 So.2d 824 (Miss.1995), stating: He argues that the language of S-5 creates a conclusive presumption that the jury only had to find that Carr performed an act connected with the crime, and not that he intended to commit the crime, to find him guilty of the underlying felony. In Simmons v. State, 568 So.2d 1192 (Miss.1990), this Court upheld a similar jury instruction, which was challenged because it did not require that the jury find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had committed every element of the crime. We find that jury instruction S-5 sufficiently instructed the jurors on the element of intent. Furthermore, when read in the context of the jury charge as a whole, S-5 correctly placed the burden on the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt every element of the underlying felonies with which Carr was charged. Carr, 655 So.2d at 833. Accordingly, this issue is procedurally barred and without merit.