Opinion ID: 3064974
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Failure to Give an Aiding and Abetting

Text: Instruction Was Not Plain Error. Williams argues that the district court erred in refusing to instruct the jury on the meaning of “aiding and abetting” as to the conspiracy charge, and that this lowered the mens rea requirement, because it did not give any “knowingly or intentionally” instruction. We disagree. The jury instructions, read as a whole, were not misleading or inadequate. See id. at 1230. The jury was instructed (using Ninth Circuit Model Instructions 8.16 and 8.20) regarding the elements of the crime for which Williams was charged: conspiracy. Thus, the jury was instructed that it had to find that Williams “became a member of the conspiracy knowing of at least one of its objects and intending to help accomplish it.” (emphasis added). The jury was also instructed that one “becomes a member of a conspiracy by willfully participating in the unlawful plan with the intent to advance or further some object or purpose of the conspiracy . . .” (emphasis added). 10208 UNITED STATES v. REED The jury was also instructed that “one who has knowledge of a conspiracy but happens to act in a way which furthers some object or purpose of the conspiracy doesn’t thereby become a conspirator” and that “a person doesn’t become a conspirator merely by associating with one or more persons who are conspirators, nor merely by knowing that a conspiracy exists.” Further, the jury was actually instructed as to the elements of aiding and abetting in connection with instructions on other counts. [27] Given the record, we conclude that jury instructions, when read as a whole, did not lower the mens rea, and were not misleading or inadequate to guide the jury’s deliberations. Even if the district court should have issued an additional instruction specifically defining “aiding and abetting” in a conspiracy, the district court did not commit plain error.