Opinion ID: 1149229
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: whether the trial court committed reversible error in refusing duplantis' proposed jury instruction dgps-11.

Text: ¶ 51. The trial judge refused to allow the following instruction to be submitted to the jury. 1. The Defendant cannot be convicted unless the Jury is satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the Defendant by word, act or deed, assisted, encouraged or induced the commission charged in the indictment. 2. If the evidence does not satisfy the Jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused did participate in the crime, the Jury may not speculate in order to determine he did it, and its's [sic] verdict must be not guilty. 3. In order to convict the Defendant the Jury must find from the evidence that the accused took part in the perpetration or preparation of the crime with intent to assist in it, and this must be proven from evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. 4. If all of the above has not been proven by the State, by evidence, you must vote the accused not guilty. ¶ 52. The state argues that Duplantis is procedurally barred from presenting this assignment of error because he did not object to its denial at the trial level. The state finds its authority for this proposition in Nicholson ex. rel . Gollott v. State, 672 So.2d 744, 752 (Miss. 1996). Although in dicta we indicated that we could impose a procedural bar, we did not intend to overrule existing caselaw and therefore require litigants to object to the denial of instructions that they themselves have offered. Prior precedent of this Court makes it clear that an issue involving the denial of a requested jury instruction: ... is procedurally preserved by the mere tendering of the instructions, suggesting that they are correct and asking the Court to submit them to the jury. This in and of itself affords counsel opposite fair notice of the party's position and the Court an opportunity to pass upon the matter. When the instructions are refused, there is no reason why we should thereafter require an objection to the refusal unless we are to place a value upon redundancy and nonsense. Carmichael v. Agur Realty Co., Inc., 574 So.2d 603, 613 (Miss. 1990). We agree with Carmichael, and find that Duplantis is not procedurally barred from review of this assignment. He only needed to tender his suggested jury instruction in order to preserve review. ¶ 53. Jury instructions are reviewed as a whole with no one instruction taken out of context. Wilson v. State, 592 So.2d 993, 997 (Miss. 1991). We review instructions in this light because we are mindful that [n]ot every instruction need cover every point of importance, so long as the point is fairly presented elsewhere. Taylor v. State, 597 So.2d 192, 195 (Miss. 1992). However, if the trial judge failed to present the jury with all the essential elements of the crime, a fundamental error has occurred. Hunter v. State, 684 So.2d 625, 635 (Miss. 1996). ¶ 54. Duplantis asserts that without Instruction DGPS-11, the jury was inadequately informed that in order to find him guilty of capital murder he needed to possess the intent to assist in the robbery of Gary Thrash prior to Thrash's death. We disagree. Instruction S11 states that an aider and abetter must be present. It is difficult to imagine how Duplantis could have been present, aiding and abetting Strickland in the murdering and robbing of Gary Thrash and not intend to do so. Furthermore, Instruction S-2 states that, If you should find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt and to the exclusion of every reasonable hypothesis consistent with innocence, that the Defendant, David Duplantis, willingly participated in the robbery of Gary Thrash, in furtherance of which the death of Gary Thrash resulted, then it is your duty to return a verdict of guilty as to Capital Murder. [emphasis added]. ¶ 55. Reading Instructions S-2 and S-ll together, the jury necessarily had to find that Duplantis was present in the midst of this bloody crime scene, willingly participat[ing] in the robbery of Gary Thrash, in furtherance of which the death of Gary Thrash resulted... . We find that the jury was adequately apprised of the need to find intent to rob prior to the commission of the robbery. Any error that resulted from this instruction had no substantial influence on the outcome of this case and was, therefore, harmless. California v. Roy, 519 U.S. 2, ___, 117 S.Ct. 337, 338, 136 L.Ed.2d 266 (1996) ( citing Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 1253, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946)). ¶ 56. This assignment is rejected.