Opinion ID: 1998644
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Response Requires Reversal

Text: The primary purpose of jury instructions is to define the principles of law that the jurors must apply when deciding the factual issues involved in the specific case before them. [16] The parties are entitled to all instructions on their legal theories of the case, provided the instructions are timely requested, supported by evidence, and correctly state the law. [17] Delaware law currently provides that a person indicted as a principal may be convicted as an accomplice and that a person indicted as an accomplice may be convicted as a principal. [18] In this case, however, the State argued that Manlove was the principal perpetrator of the crimes against Slater and suggested no other theory of liability at Manlove's retrial. In response to the jury's question, the trial judge should have responded that Manlove's culpability as an accessory or accomplice was not an issue to be decided in determining Manlove's guilt on the robbery charge. Instead, the trial judge read section 275(a) without regard to any instruction or definition of accomplice liability as set forth in section 271. The trial judge's reading of section 275(a) gave the jury an incomplete understanding of accomplice liability law as that concept was explained by this Court in Zimmerman v. State. [19] Informing the jury that a principal can be convicted as an accomplice without actual knowledge of the statutory definition of accomplice liability in section 271 created material prejudice to Manlove. With no instruction on accomplice liability, the jury may have convicted Manlove on the generally correct assumption that being an accomplice can involve a plan or an agreement. As a result of Manlove's prior acquittal of conspiracy, however, the possibility that the jury relied on a plan or an agreement to establish Manlove's liability as an accomplice requires a reversal of his conviction on Robbery in the First Degree. [20] The trial judge's supplemental instruction to the jury constituted reversible error for two independent reasons. First, the trial judge's response to the jury erroneously introduced the concept of accomplice liability into Manlove's case when that issue was irrelevant to the State's exclusive assertion that Manlove was guilty as the principal perpetrator of the crimes against Slater. Second, because an agreement can serve as one basis for accomplice liability, but not in a retrial following an acquittal of conspiracy, [21] the trial judge's general reference to accomplice liability subjected Manlove to being placed in jeopardy again for the conspiracy charge on which he had been previously acquitted. [22]