Opinion ID: 1502463
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Sufficiency of Evidence of Complicity

Text: Appellant contends that the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction for accomplice murder pursuant to 17-A M.R. S.A. § 57 and § 201. According to section 57, subsection (1), a person may be guilty of a crime if it is committed by the conduct of another person for which he is legally accountable ... Subsection 2 provides that a person is legally accountable for the conduct of another person when he is an accomplice. Subsection 3, in turn, provides, in pertinent part, as follows: A person is an accomplice of another person in the commission of a crime if: A. With the intent of promoting or facilitating the commission of the crime, he solicits such other person to commit the crime, or aids or agrees to aid or attempts to aid such other person in planning or committing the crime. A person is an accomplice under this subsection to any crime the commission of which was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of his conduct . . . . 17-A M.R.S.A. § 57(3)(A) (Supp.1980). At the time of announcing his decision finding appellant guilty of murder as an accomplice, the trial justice made several comments about the case, remarking, inter alia, that the testimony demonstrates at least condonation on the part of the defendant, and her behavior with Michael Doody throughout this period demonstrates encouragement, if not outright solicitation. The trial justice was not requested to find the facts specially under M.R.Crim.P. 23(c), and his comments at the time of decision did not amount to such special findings. This Court, on appeal, must determine the question of sufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction by a review of all the evidence relevant to the trial court's ultimate conclusion of guilt. Appellant contends that there was no evidence at all indicating that she affirmatively solicited Michael Doody to murder Norma Bennett or that she aided or agreed to aid Michael in planning or committing the crime. Our review of the sufficiency of the evidence of complicity proceeds on the basis that the Superior Court's finding will be sustained if on all the evidence viewed in a light most favorable to the State, the factfinder could have rationally found beyond a reasonable doubt that the appellant, with the intent of promoting or facilitating the commission of the crime, (1) solicited Michael Doody to murder her mother, or (2) aided or agreed to aid him in planning or committing the crime, or (3) attempted to aid him in planning or committing the crime. In the light most favorable to the State, the evidence would have supported the following findings of fact in addition to the circumstances, described above, of the meeting of Constance, Michael and Fitzherbert at the Sportsmen's Tavern in Caribou: On October 6, 1979, Norma Bennett visited Constance and accused Constance's daughter, Kelly, of lying about the conduct of another member of the family. Constance and Norma argued with each other. After the argument, Constance met Larry Doody, Michael's brother, and asked him if he knew anyone who might get rid of Norma for her. Later that same day, Constance, Michael, William Fitzherbert, and Larry Doody drove together to a junkyard to purchase a pickup truck for Michael. During that drive, Michael mentioned that he was going to attend a party at Fitzherbert's that evening. Constance asked whether she was invited and Michael replied, Look, God damn it, you [Constance] did not want to know when it was going down, then reached over and opened the glove compartment of the car, revealing a box of bullets. According to the testimony of Fitzherbert, who was a passenger in the car at the time, Constance replied that she understood and added, I won't give you any problem. Fitzherbert testified that appellant then said she would take the babysitter home and take a chance on driving the old Chevrolet car that was not registered. Still viewed most favorably to the State, the evidence of record would support a finding that Constance and Michael spent most of the remainder of October 6 together. After the truck was purchased, Michael told Constance he was going to blow the windows out of Norma's car and perhaps kill Norma that evening by ambushing her when she drove by him in her automobile. Michael related that and other schemes to Constance several times on that day. Michael did nothing to Norma on the evening of October 6. Instead, he and Constance went drinking together at the Caribou Hotel and spent the evening together. On the following day, Michael and Constance got a babysitter for the children and went to the Sportsmen's Tavern. At the tavern, Constance told Michael about Norma's visit on October 6. Michael left the tavern and went to Norma's trailer where he cut the telephone wires. Michael returned to the tavern and told Constance what he had done. The couple discussed Norma, separated briefly, and met again later that evening at the Caribou Hotel. At about 9:30 p. m., they returned to Constance's house. Constance went inside and sent the babysitter out to the truck where Michael had fallen asleep while waiting to take her home. Michael drove the sitter home, then went to Norma Bennett's trailer, shot Norma, and returned to Constance's house. On arriving there, he told Constance he had shot Norma, asked for and received twenty dollars from Constance to get out of town, and disconnected the house telephone. After Michael left the house, Constance sent her daughter Kelly to find a certain neighbor and ask him to reconnect the telephone. The neighbor connected the telephone. While doing so, he observed that Constance was nervous and he heard her mumble to herself about calling the police. After the telephone was connected, Constance called her ex-husband to discuss the problems she was having with Norma, but she did not tell him that Michael had shot Norma. The ex-husband spoke with his daughter Kelly for about forty-five minutes because she was upset about her grandmother's accusation that she had lied. Later that evening the police came to Constance's house looking for Michael. [6] Constance did not tell them Michael had been there or what he had told her, but she did tell them where they might find him. The evidence was sufficient under the Maine Criminal Code to support the trial court's conclusion that beyond a reasonable doubt appellant was an accomplice in the murder. The trial justice could have reasonably inferred an intent on appellant's part to promote or facilitate the crime. Her offer, in Michael's presence several days before the murder, to pay Fitzherbert for killing her mother was evidence of a desire on her part that the murder be committed, even though that offer by itself was not proof that she solicited Michael to do the act personally. Even more probative of her intent of promoting or facilitating the commission of the crime was the testimony that she told Michael on October 6 that she would not give him any problem when he showed her the bullets in the glove compartment and told her she was not invited to the Fitzherbert party because she did not want to know when it was going down. The response attributed to Constance, I won't give you any problem, could be reasonably found by the trial court to imply an assurance to Michael that she would not interfere with his plans and that she approved of the proposed crime. By engaging not to interfere with his plans whatever they might be, she went beyond mere condonation or passive acquiescence, neither of which alone, generally speaking, would give rise to accomplice liability. W. LaFave & A. W. Scott, Jr., Criminal Law § 64, at 503 (1972); 1 F. Wharton, Criminal Law & Procedure § 110, at 237 (Anderson ed.1957). According to Fitzherbert's testimony, appellant's assurance of non-interference was coupled with a remark that she would take the babysitter home in her own car even though it was not registered. In the circumstances, the trier of fact could reasonably interpret her remark as an offer of aid to Michael in his planning for the crime: in effect, she told him he could count on the availability of his own car for execution of his plans. Believing that evidence and drawing rational inferences from it, the trial court could have reasonably concluded (1) that Constance affirmatively assured Michael that she acquiesced in the proposed killing and that he could count on her non-intervention, and (2) that she was willing to do an act having the effect of facilitating the execution of the crime. On this view of the evidence, her conduct went beyond mere condonation and made her an accomplice under section 57 on the basis that, with intent to facilitate commission of the crime, she had aided or agreed to aid Michael in planning or committing it. Michael did not kill Norma on October 6 as he had said or implied he would. Appellant contends that the evidence does not support a conclusion that any complicity she could be found to have had in Michael's plan for the night of October 6 persisted until the murder on the night of October 7 or had any tendency to affect commission of the homicide as it actually occurred. Testifying in her own defense, appellant gave testimony to show that she believed Michael was going to his own apartment after taking the babysitter home. Subsection 5 of 17-A M.R.S.A. § 57 provides, in pertinent part, as follows: 5. Unless otherwise expressly provided, a person is not an accomplice in a crime committed by another person if: ..... C. He terminates his complicity prior to the commission of the crime by (1) informing his accomplice that he has abandoned his criminal activity and (2) leaving the scene of the prospective crime, if he is present thereat. Inasmuch as appellant's testimony at trial had been that she never encouraged her husband to kill her mother, she could not and did not testify that she ever informed Michael that she had abandoned her criminal activity. Nevertheless, the trial justice, in his remarks at the time of announcing his decision, weighed the possibility that, by her conduct toward Michael on October 7, appellant may have manifested an intent to abandon the enterprise. The trial justice's conclusion, that her conduct did not manifest such an abandonment, has rational support in the evidence, particularly from the testimony showing appellant's studied delay, after Michael returned with news of the shooting, in summoning aid for her mother in case she might still be alive. The fact that the crime did not occur exactly at the time and in the manner Michael planned it on October 6 did not relieve appellant of accomplice liability. 1 F. Wharton, supra, § 110, at 238. The time and manner of commission of the murder conformed to the October 6 plan closely enough to support a rational inference by the trial justice that the plan was still being followed in its essentials, and that there was a direct causal connection between appellant's complicity and Michael's ultimate act. See 17-A M.R.S.A. § 56. Finally, it is immaterial that, in the course of actually committing the crime, Michael did not have occasion to avail himself of appellant's proffered aid. 1 F. Wharton, supra, § 110, at 238. The entry is: Judgment affirmed. All concurring.