Opinion ID: 2010891
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Sufficiency of the Evidence and Instructional Arguments

Text: Wheeler contends that the evidence at trial was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he had committed any of the three offenses charged. Two of these evidentiary contentions are premised on arguments that the trial court erred when instructing the jury on the second and third counts of the indictment: first-degree murder while armed and possession of a firearm during a crime of violence (PFCV). The instruction applicable to the first count, howeverconspiracy to commit first-degree murder [13] is not challenged. Accordingly, we shall first address sufficiency of the evidence under that conspiracy count, and then consider sufficiency under the second and third counts after resolving the instructional issues.
In reviewing a claim of insufficient evidence, this court must determine whether a rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, and giving full play to the right of the jury to determine credibility, weigh the evidence, and draw justifiable inferences of fact. McCoy v. United States, 890 A.2d 204, 213 (D.C.2006) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). We have said that to prove a conspiracy, the government must establish the following elements: that an agreement existed between two or more people to commit a criminal offense; that the defendant knowingly and voluntarily participated in the agreement, intending to commit a criminal objective; and that, in furtherance of and during the conspiracy, a co-conspirator committed at least one overt act. Id. at 213-14 (citing McCullough v. United States, 827 A.2d 48, 58 (D.C.2003)). [14] On this record, the government's evidence was sufficient for a rational trier of fact to have found Wheeler guilty of conspiracy to commit murder beyond a reasonable doubt. First, Wheeler had a clear motive to commit the murder: Two individuals had robbed the mother of his child of $17,000 that he had given her for the child's care. Second, Wheeler was extremely angry after the robbery, telling various individuals that he was going to get revenge. He said, for example, that somebody was going to pay; that he was going to do what [he had] to do and was willing to go to jail behind this one; that he was not going to let that shit slide about his girlfriend['s] house getting robbed; and that he was going to yeah, [15] meaning smash, the perpetrator when he found out who was responsible for the robbery. Third, Wheeler then drove around the neighborhood with another individual, [16] seeking information about the identity of the man who had stolen his money. He eventually learned the identity of the robber from a number of individuals, including Brittainy Johnsonthe victim of the robberywho told Wheeler that Taylor had been one of the robbers. Fourth, Wheeler then spoke about getting Slim (a slang term for an acquaintance, according to McCray) to smash (a slang term that, according to McCray, could mean kill, beat up, or cause some type of harm to) the robber. See note 15, supra. Wheeler even told one of Taylor's friends on the day of Taylor's murder that shit ain't looking good for your man. Fifth, and also on the day of the murder, Wheeler was seen with the same man who had been with him on the day of the robbery. [17] Sixth, only thirty-one hours after Wheeler's $17,000 were stolen, Taylor was shot ten times with a nine millimeter Luger firearm by an unidentified black male. [18] Seventh, after the murder Wheeler no longer was angry; rather, [h]e was more chilled, laid back, ... [and] social with the crowd. Finally, Wheeler made two incriminating statements after the murder. When Babb asked Wheeler if he had had Taylor killed, Wheeler responded sarcastically, I don't know what happened to your man. Just like don't nobody know what happened to my house getting robbed. While incarcerated with Riley, who advised that Wheeler could beat the case as long as the shooter did not cooperate with law enforcement, Wheeler replied, I got my man. He's going to hold fast. Wheeler argues, nonetheless, that his uncorroborated out-of-court statements made after commission of the crimethat is, after he allegedly had entered into the agreement with his co-conspirator to kill Taylor with a firearm cannot support his conviction. He contends that we should apply the holding in Opper v. United States, 348 U.S. 84, 90, 75 S.Ct. 158, 99 L.Ed. 101 (1954), recognized in Smith v. United States, 348 U.S. 147, 152, 75 S.Ct. 194, 99 L.Ed. 192 (1954), that statements made by an accused after the commission of a crime (but not those made before) regarding essential facts or elements of the crime require corroboration. Here, however, even accepting Wheeler's argument that the crime occurred at the moment he allegedly entered into the agreement to kill Taylor, and not later when the unidentified shooter actually shot Taylor, there is sufficient corroborative evidence to support Wheeler's conviction. Wheeler's clear motive, extreme anger following the robbery, and actions to discover the identity of the robber, along with the close proximity in time between the robbery and the murder, as well as Wheeler's calm and relieved demeanor following the murder, provide sufficient corroboration for any statements that took place after he entered into the agreement with the unidentified shooter. Based on the evidence presented, therefore, even though largely circumstantial, [19] we are satisfied that a rational trier of fact could have found Wheeler guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
The trial court offered the jury two avenues to convicting Wheeler on the second count, first-degree murder while armed: as an aider and abettor and/or as a co-conspirator. His instructional arguments, therefore, unfold in the following order. First, the government concedes that the aiding-and-abetting instruction was deficient. Contrary to our en banc decision in Wilson-Bey, [20] this instruction did not require the jury to find that Wheeler, as an aider and abetter of the shooter, had intended to commit murder. More specifically, the instruction did not require the jury to find that Wheeler himself, after premeditation and deliberation, had formed the specific intent to kill Taylorthe same murderous intent that the government would have had to prove for the shooter. [21] Instead, the trial court's instruction erroneously permitted the watered-down finding that Wheeler was guilty of murder because it was the natural and probable consequence[ ] of a crime, committed by another, in which Wheeler had intentionally participate[d]. [22] Wheeler begins his argument, therefore, with the uncontested proposition that the jury's initial instruction on liability as an aider and abettor under the second count amounted essentially to a negligence instruction and thus expressed an invalid level of intent. [23] Wheeler next turns to the Pinkerton instruction for co-conspirator liability, which authorized the jury to find Wheeler guilty of counts two and three, murder and/or possession of a firearm, as a co-conspirator, if either crime was the natural consequence or the reasonably foreseeable consequence of the alleged conspiracy. [24] That instruction, he sayslike the aiding-and-abetting instructionfailed to incorporate the higher level of intent required for first-degree murder. From these observations, Wheeler argues that whether the jury used aiding-and-abetting or co-conspirator liability to find him guilty of count twoincluding the possibility that some jurors used one theory while the remaining jurors used the othereach instruction diluted the level of intent required to convict him of first-degree murder while armed. That is to say, each instruction allowed the jury to convict him of first-degree murder while armed if he acted negligently rather than with specific intent to kill with premeditation and deliberation. He adds, moreover, that even if this court were to view[ ] the coconspirator liability instruction as properly given, the murder conviction could not stand because some of the jurors may have convicted him under the defective aiding-and-abetting instruction, precluding jury unanimity under a valid instruction. [25] Although creative, these instructional arguments must fail.
As predicates for analysis, we note again that in convicting Wheeler, on count one, of conspiracy to murder, the jury found the specific intent to kill, with premeditation and deliberation, required by Wilson-Bey for conviction on count two of the murder itself. Furthermoreand this point is ultimately key to our analysisthe trial court's unchallenged conspiracy instruction on count one, although somewhat differently formulated, embraced all three critical elements of conspiracy specified in its Pinkerton co-conspirator liability instruction on count two, the validity of which we acknowledged in Wilson-Bey. [26] From these predicates, the analysis can proceed in two ways. First, even if one or more jurors, in deciding count two, focused on the erroneous aiding-and-abetting instruction, not on the valid Pinkerton co-conspirator liability instruction, they already would have foundby convicting on count onethat Wheeler had the specific, premeditated, and deliberate intent required by Wilson-Bey for the count two first-degree murder. Thus, the defect in the aiding-and-abetting instruction, permitting the jury to find Wheeler guilty of murder as the natural and probable consequence of another individual's actions, was eclipsedmade harmless beyond a reasonable doubtby the fact that the jury, in convicting of conspiracy to murder, unanimously found the higher, requisite intent for premeditated murder because a conspiracy to murder could hardly involve any lesser intent. Put another way, the jury's count one conspiracy conviction effectively provided the special verdict required to assure us that the jurors who found all the elements of aiding and abetting also added in a finding of the heightened mental state required by statute to prove first-degree murder. No member of the jury, therefore, could have relied exclusively on the lesser, negligence standard that Wheeler identifies as the presumed basis for conviction by one or more jurors under the aiding-and-abetting instruction. [27] But there is a second, alternative approach. Because the count one conspiracy satisfied the defining elements of the count two Pinkerton co-conspirator liability instruction, [28] all jurors can be said to have found Wheeler guilty of a conspiracy that embraces all substantive crimes that were a natural consequence or a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the conspiracy. In Wilson-Bey, we called criminal conspiracy an offense of the gravest character; as a partnership in crime, it justifies conviction of each conspirator for all reasonably foreseeable criminal acts of a co-conspirator (deemed at law to be the conspirator's agent) without proof of the mens rea otherwise required for the subsequent crime. [29] Under Pinkerton, therefore, the intent necessary for conviction of murder as an aider and abettor under Wilson-Bey yields to virtually the same state of mindthe lesser foreseeability or natural and probable consequences standardfound erroneous in the court's aiding-and-abetting instruction. In short, a conspiracyan agreement not necessarily present among aiders and abettorsis deemed a substitute for the particular state of mind required for convicting a nonconspiratorial accomplice of murder under Wilson-Bey. A jury finding that Wheeler had the state of mind required for conviction of first-degree murder was therefore not necessary for conviction under the Pinkerton theory. Ultimately, however, there is one overriding reality that makes the Wilson-Bey error harmless. Every juror found, at the very least, that Wheeler had joined a criminal conspiracy with an unknown co-conspirator, and every juror found that Taylor's murder was the natural or probable result of that conspiracy. Those findings suffice for Pinkerton co-conspirator liability, and Wheeler's conviction of first-degree murder accordingly must be upheld. [30]
Reliance on the count one conspiracy instruction to cure the defect in the aiding-and-abetting instruction, however, extends only to the intent to murder; the conspiracy instruction says nothing about the additional while armed language in count one of the indictment or about the validity of the count two instructions as applied to PFCV. [31] Thus, we must consider whether the aiding-and-abetting instruction and/or the Pinkerton co-conspirator instruction adequately covered the additional jury finding required for conviction of murder while armed, as well as the findings necessary for conviction of PFCV. [32] Had the jury not convicted Wheeler of conspiracy to murder, two decisions of this court, Wilson-Bey and Lancaster, [33] would have dictated that his conviction of aiding and abetting PFCV required, respectively, a proper instruction, followed by a jury finding, that Wheeler took specific steps to assist Taylor's killer in the actual possession of a firearm; a general participation in the criminal venture to prove aiding and abetting of the possessory firearms offense is not enough. [34] Thus, without a conspiracy, a jury finding on count two that it was reasonably foreseeable to the aider and abettor that some type of weapon was required to commit Taylor's murder would not suffice for conviction of PFCV. [35] Similarly, if Wilson-Bey were applicable to the when armed language in D.C.Code § 22-4502(a)an issue we do not decidewe could not conclude that the trial court's instruction, allowing the jury to rely on reasonable foreseeability of a firearm, satisfied the intent requirement for aiding and abetting an armed offense under § 22-4502(a). [36]
We need not consider such Wilson-Bey applications further. Given our conclusion that the count one conspiracy conviction embraced the elements of a Pinkerton conspiracy, we must conclude that a unanimous jury properly found Wheeler guilty of murder while armed, as well as PFCV. Based on the evidence presented in Part I and assembled in Part III. A. to demonstrate Wheeler's participation in a conspiracy to murder Taylor, we are satisfied that Taylor's murder by an armed killer, and thus the killer's possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, werelike the murder itselfcrimes readily described as natural or reasonably foreeseeable consequences of that conspiracy. Those overt acts by Wheeler's unknown co-conspirator justified, under Pinkerton, the jury's verdicts convicting Wheeler not only of conspiracy to murder but also of first-degree murder while armed and possession of a firearm during a crime of violence. As we have observed in analyzing the murder in Part III. B. above, the fact that some jurors may have relied on the erroneous aiding-and-abetting instruction, rather than on the Pinkerton theory, to find reasonable foreseeability is irrelevant, and the instructional error harmless, given the legal validity of the result under Pinkerton.