Opinion ID: 1677663
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: failure to instruct on criminal facilitation.

Text: The trial judge instructed the jury that Appellant could be found guilty as either principal or accomplice to trafficking in a controlled substance in the first degree. Appellant claims it was error for the trial judge not to instruct the jury on criminal facilitation of trafficking as a lesser included offense of complicity. KRS 502.020(1) (complicity) provides in pertinent part: A person is guilty of an offense committed by another person when, with the intention of promoting or facilitating the commission of the offense, he: (a) Solicits, commands, or engages in a conspiracy with such other person to commit the offense; or (b) Aids, counsels, or attempts to aid such person in planning or committing the offense. (Emphasis added.) KRS 506.080(1) (facilitation) provides: A person is guilty of criminal facilitation when, acting with knowledge that another person is committing or intends to commit a crime, he engages in conduct which knowingly provides such person with means or opportunity for the commission of the crime and which in fact aids such person to commit the crime. (Emphasis added.) Under either statute, the defendant acts with knowledge that the principal actor is committing or intends to commit a crime. Under the complicity statute, the defendant must intend that the crime be committed; under the facilitation statute, the defendant acts without such intent. Facilitation only requires provision of the means or opportunity to commit a crime, while complicity requires solicitation, conspiracy, or some form of assistance. Skinner v. Commonwealth, Ky., 864 S.W.2d 290, 298 (1993). Facilitation reflects the mental state of one who is `wholly indifferent' to the actual completion of the crime. Perdue v. Commonwealth, Ky., 916 S.W.2d 148, 160 (1995), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 855, 117 S.Ct. 151, 136 L.Ed.2d 96 (1996). An instruction on a lesser-included offense is appropriate if and only if on the given evidence a reasonable juror could entertain reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt of the greater charge, but believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of the lesser offense. Skinner v. Commonwealth, supra, at 298. In Webb v. Commonwealth, Ky., 904 S.W.2d 226 (1995), we held it was error not to instruct on facilitation where the defendant testified that he gave his girlfriend a ride in his car knowing that she was in the process of a drug transaction, but that he did not intend that she commit the crime. Id. at 229. Appellant claims the same reasoning applies in this case. Here, however, Appellant did not testify; and the only evidence the jury heard was that Appellant and Dancy met Franklin at the Holiday Inn; that Dancy loaded the suitcase containing the cocaine into Appellant's vehicle; that Appellant drove Dancy and Franklin to Morrow's residence where Dancy, Morrow and Appellant all inspected the cocaine; that the cocaine was apparently removed from the suitcase and placed in a grocery bag on the floorboard of Appellant's vehicle; and that Appellant, the two Californians, and the cocaine were all in Appellant's vehicle when it was stopped. Appellant's tendered facilitation instruction embodied a theory that Appellant knew Franklin and Dancy were engaged in a drug transaction, but that he was transporting these two strangers from California to the location of their intended drug deal out of the goodness of his heart, wholly indifferent to the actual completion of the crime, i.e., without the intent that the crime be committed. Nothing in the evidence supports such a theory. If Appellant was not involved in the drug transaction or did not intend for Franklin and Dancy to consummate it, why were they and the cocaine in his vehicle instead of in Morrow's vehicle? The duty to instruct on any lesser included offenses supported by the evidence does not require an instruction on a theory with no evidentiary foundation. Houston v. Commonwealth, Ky., 975 S.W.2d 925, 929 (1998). The jury is required to decide a criminal case on the evidence as presented or reasonably deducible therefrom, not on imaginary scenarios. Appellant was not entitled to a facilitation instruction in this case.