Opinion ID: 1711620
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: felony murder jury instructions

Text: McHenry's first assigned error is that instructions Nos. 3 and 4 were erroneous. McHenry apparently intends to assign error to the use of jury instructions Nos. 2 and 3, not 3 and 4. Instructions Nos. 2 and 3 are instructions regarding felony murder and were the subject of objections at the instruction conference. To the extent that there is some separate objection to instruction No. 4, it has not been preserved at trial for appeal, and it is not discussed as error in the brief. Instructions Nos. 2 and 3 set out the felony murder theory. The pertinent portion of instruction No. 2 is as follows: This is a criminal case in which the State of Nebraska has charged the defendant in Count I with, on or about July 28, 1992, knowingly or intentionally aiding another to attempt to perpetrate a robbery or commit a first degree sexual assault in which Richard Sterkel was killed. The relevant portion of instruction No. 3 reads: In order for the defendant to be found guilty of Count I, the State must prove the elements of felony murder beyond a reasonable doubt. The State must prove that: 1. The defendant aided another person, that is he hired, encouraged or helped another person in the attempted commission of a robbery, or in the commission of a first degree sexual assault; 2. That he did so knowingly or intentionally; 3. That he did so knowing that the other person intended to commit a robbery or that the other person intended to commit a first degree sexual assault; 4. That the robbery was attempted to be committed or the first degree sexual assault was actually committed; 5. That during the course of the attempted commission of the robbery or during the course of the commission of the first degree sexual assault the death of Richard Sterkel resulted. At the instruction conference, McHenry's counsel objected to these instructions and also objected to the general use of aiding and abetting sexual assault as one of the underlying felonies which would provide the basis for a conviction for felony murder. As McHenry's counsel correctly pointed out, McHenry had previously been acquitted of aiding and abetting first degree sexual assault. McHenry's counsel argued that to submit such an instruction would permit the jury to pass on McHenry's guilt or innocence for aiding and abetting first degree sexual assault a second time and would therefore subject McHenry to jeopardy twice for the same crime. In spite of this proper objection, the district court overruled the objection to the instruction without explanation. McHenry raises this same argument on appeal. The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prevents a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal. See State v. Detweiler, 249 Neb. 485, 544 N.W.2d 83 (1996). McHenry was acquitted of aiding and abetting sexual assault in the first trial. The question is whether this acquittal of a felony in a previous trial prevents the use of the same felony as an underlying felony to support a felony murder prosecution in a retrial. Although this is a case of first impression in Nebraska, the principles underlying the double jeopardy protection clearly establish that acquittal of a felony in a previous trial prevents the use of the same felony as an underlying felony to support a felony murder prosecution in a retrial. A similar double jeopardy issue was addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Sanabria v. United States, 437 U.S. 54, 98 S.Ct. 2170, 57 L.Ed.2d 43 (1978). The defendant, along with several codefendants, was originally charged with operating a gambling business, which was a crime under 18 U.S.C. § 1955 (1976). One of the elements of this crime required that the prosecution prove that the defendant violated a state gambling statute. The prosecution presented evidence that the defendant was operating a numbers gambling operation and also put on evidence that the defendant was operating a betting operation on horse races. Only the horse racing betting operation was illegal under the particular Massachusetts statute the prosecution alleged the defendant had violated. At the end of the government's case in chief, defense counsel argued that the government had failed to prove the required element that the defendant violated a state gambling statute. The defendant pointed out that the statute the prosecutors used to meet this element did not prohibit numbers betting, but only horse betting. After the defendant rested, the trial judge granted the defendant's motion to exclude all evidence of numbers betting and then granted a motion to acquit the defendant of the federal gambling charge because of lack of evidence of the defendant's connection with the horse gambling aspect of the business. The government appealed from the order which excluded the numbers-betting evidence and from the judgment acquitting the defendant, and sought a new trial on the portion of the indictment relating to the numbers betting. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit agreed that the numbers-betting aspect of the charge could not be retried, but nevertheless vacated the acquittal as it applied to the numbers-betting theory. On appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the vacation of the acquittal, noting that the acquittal on the horse-betting charge included a specific acquittal on the element that was necessary to prove the gambling operation charge under the numbers-betting theory. The Court emphasized that this acquittal was a controlling finding of fact on that particular element and that a retrial on a different charge which required proof of that element was prohibited by the double jeopardy bar. [A] subsequent trial of petitioner for conducting the same illegal gambling business as that at issue in the first trial would subject him to a second trial on the `same offense' of which he was acquitted. Sanabria, 437 U.S. at 74, 98 S.Ct. at 2184. Sanabria has been applied in a case very similar to the case at bar. The defendant in Wright v. State, 307 Md. 552, 515 A.2d 1157 (1986), was originally charged and prosecuted for murder under two separate theories. He was charged with first degree murder under a first degree murder theory which required premeditation and deliberation and was also charged with murder under a felony murder theory with the underlying felony being attempted robbery. He was also charged in a separate count for the underlying attempted robbery. At the conclusion of the state's case, the court granted a motion for judgment of acquittal as to the attempted robbery on the grounds of insufficient evidence to support the conviction. The trial court denied the motion to acquit the defendant of first degree murder because it found that there was sufficient evidence to support the first degree murder charge, which was not based on the felony murder theory. During the defendant's portion of the case, a codefendant presented evidence which bolstered the defendant's involvement in the attempted robbery. In view of this additional evidence the court permitted the murder charge to be submitted to the jury on a felony murder theory at the end of the defendant's case. The court stated that while double jeopardy principles prevented the court from reinstating the underlying felony charge of attempted robbery, the court was not barred from permitting the jury to consider the defendant's guilt regarding the underlying felony for the sole purpose of determining whether there was sufficient proof of an underlying felony to support the felony murder charge. The jury subsequently found the defendant guilty of felony murder. On appeal, the Maryland Court of Appeals applied Sanabria and double jeopardy principles and reversed the defendant's conviction. The court held that the prior acquittal on the underlying felony was an absolute bar to the jury's subsequent consideration of the same underlying felony as a basis to support the felony murder theory. The court stated: [A]fter the prosecution's case, there was a judicial determination that the prosecution had failed to present sufficient evidence of an attempted robbery by the defendant Wright, and a verdict of acquittal with regard to the matter was entered. The defendant Wright was then required to run the gauntlet further on the question of whether he committed the attempted robbery, and he was subjected to a second resolution of the matter. There were two verdicts on the issue of whether he committed the attempted armed robbery, the first being the acquittal by the trial judge and the second being the conviction of felony murder by the jury. Wright, 307 Md. at 574, 515 A.2d at 1168. We find the analysis in Wright instructive for the issues before us. McHenry was originally charged with aiding and abetting first degree sexual assault. He was prosecuted on that charge and defended against it. A jury acquitted him. As a result, it was error for the district court to include a reference to this count as one of the possible underlying felonies supporting a felony murder conviction and thereby force McHenry to face determination of his guilt on that charge again. Thus, the use of instructions Nos. 2 and 3 was error. This, however, does not end our inquiry. We must consider whether use of the erroneous instructions constituted reversible error or merely harmless error. Even a constitutional error which was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt does not warrant the reversal of a criminal conviction. State v. White, 249 Neb. 381, 543 N.W.2d 725 (1996). In a jury trial of a criminal case, harmless error exists when there is some incorrect conduct by the trial court which, on review of the entire record, did not materially influence the jury in reaching a verdict adverse to a substantial right of the defendant. Id. Harmless error review looks to the basis on which the jury actually rested its verdict; the inquiry is not whether in a trial that occurred without the error a guilty verdict would surely have been rendered, but, rather, whether the actual guilty verdict rendered in the questioned trial was surely attributable to the error. Id. From our review of these instructions, we find that the use of instructions Nos. 2 and 3 was harmless. These instructions presented the jury with two possible underlying felonies upon which to base its verdict of felony murder: (1) aiding and abetting attempted robbery and (2) aiding and abetting sexual assault. As previously stated, the inclusion of the latter was clearly erroneous. However, in an independent finding regarding count II, the jury convicted McHenry of aiding and abetting attempted robbery. Therefore, the jury found McHenry guilty of an underlying felony for which he was properly tried and the jury was properly instructed. That underlying felony provides a sufficient basis for the felony murder conviction. It also establishes that the jury verdict of felony murder was based upon the conviction for aiding and abetting robbery. Thus, the felony murder verdict rendered following McHenry's trial was not attributable to the erroneous instructions. See White, supra. Therefore, we find beyond a reasonable doubt that the erroneous instructions were harmless.