Opinion ID: 206338
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Accomplice Liability Instructions

Text: Williams' second claim sounds in due process: he contends that the trial court's accomplice liability instructions permitted the jury to find that he was an accomplice to first degree murder without finding that he possessed the specific intent to kill. Intent to kill is an element of first degree murder under Pennsylvania law. 18 Pa. Cons.Stat. § 2502(a). This element must be proved whether the defendant is the principal or merely an accomplice to the homicide. Everett v. Beard, 290 F.3d 500, 513 (3d Cir.2002) (explaining that since the legislature drafted the law on first-degree murder, Pennsylvania law has clearly required that for an accomplice to be found guilty of first-degree murder, s/he must have intended that the victim be killed (internal citations omitted)). If, as Williams argues, the charge allowed the jury to find that he was an accomplice to first degree murder without finding that he possessed the mens rea required for that offense, then the instructions were constitutionally infirm, for due process requires that each element of the charged offense be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970); see also Smith v. Horn, 120 F.3d 400, 410 (3d Cir.1997) (holding that petitioner stated a due process claim when he successfully argued that the trial court's jury instructions had the effect of relieving the Commonwealth of its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt one of the elements of first-degree murder under Pennsylvania law). Williams did not object to the accomplice liability instructions at trial, nor did he question this aspect of the charge in post-trial motions to set aside the verdict. He also did not raise the issue on direct appeal or in his PCRA petition. It was not until November 2001, when the collateral proceeding was pending before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, that Williams filed a motion to remand to the PCRA court so that he might challenge the accomplice liability instructions. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied this motion. Williams raised the issue again in a second PCRA petition filed in 2005. The PCRA court dismissed this petition as untimely. See 42 Pa. Cons.Stat. § 9545 (requiring any PCRA petition, including a second or subsequent petition, to be filed within one year of the date that judgment becomes final). The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed. Williams then petitioned the District Court for habeas relief. The District Court held that Williams' claim was not time-barred because the PCRA's one-year statute of limitations was not firmly established and regularly applied at the time the default occurred. The Court proceeded to the merits and rejected Williams' accomplice liability claim. It concluded that even if the charge contained constitutional error, it was harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence adduced at trial. We begin by considering whether Williams procedurally defaulted his accomplice liability claim. The Commonwealth argues that the claim was untimely under state law and may not be reviewed by this Court. A federal habeas court cannot review a claim rejected by the state courts `if the decision of [the state] court rests on a state law ground that is independent of the federal question and adequate to support the judgment.' Beard v. Kindler, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 612, 614, 175 L.Ed.2d 417 (2009) (alteration in original) (quoting Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 729, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991)). State procedural rules, such as the PCRA's statute of limitations, are not an adequate bar to federal habeas review unless they were `firmly established and regularly followed' at the time the rule was contravened. Wilson v. Beard, 589 F.3d 651, 658 (3d Cir.2009) (quoting Bronshtein v. Horn, 404 F.3d 700, 707 (3d Cir.2005)). Williams ran afoul of the PCRA's statute of limitations when he failed to raise the accomplice liability claim in his initial petition for PCRA relief in 1996. See Commonwealth v. Albrecht, 994 A.2d 1091, 1093 n. 2 (Pa.2010). This default occurred well before October 20, 1998, the date by which the PCRA statute of limitations was firmly established and regularly followed. See Morris, 633 F.3d at 191 (explaining that prior to October 20, 1998, Pennsylvania courts refused to enforce procedural rulessuch as the PCRA's one-year statute of limitationsin capital cases); Bronshtein, 404 F.3d at 707-09 (same). Because the procedural rule under which the state courts dismissed Williams' accomplice liability claim was not firmly established and regularly followed at the time of his default, it is an inadequate bar to federal habeas review. We will therefore proceed to the merits and consider the claim de novo. See Lewis, 581 F.3d at 100. The propriety of the court's charge is closely intertwined with the evidence and argument brought forth at trial. Williams was tried alone. The Commonwealth argued that Williams and Draper perpetrated the killing together. Williams was portrayed as the principal. According to Draper, Williams hatched the plan to rob Norwood and recruited Draper to assist. Once the robbery was complete, it was Williams who decided to kill Norwood. To that end, he retrieved a tire iron and socket wrench with which to bludgeon Norwood's skull. Williams implored Draper to join him in this endeavor, and the two beat Norwood until he was bloody and lifeless. Simply put, Draper's account left no ambiguity regarding Williams' role as the principal in the offense. This account was consistent with testimony supplied by other Commonwealth witnesses. Williams was seen driving Norwood's vehicle approximately one hour after the murder occurred. He told his friend Rucker that he offed a guy named Amos earlier that evening. Rucker observed blood stains on Williams' shoes. Before they parted ways on the night of the murder, Williams told Rucker that he was going to get some gas from a gas station to go back to the scene of the crime. Police officers later discovered Norwood's body in the cemetery, charred beyond recognition. The Commonwealth's narrative sharply conflicted with Williams' account. He claimed that on the day of the murder, he had seen Norwood, Draper, and an acquaintance named Michael Hopkins riding in Norwood's blue Chrysler LeBaron. They apparently pulled up alongside Williams, and Draper indicated that they were headed to Draper's mother's residence on Roumfort Road. Williams asked for a ride because he happened to be going to a party in the same vicinity. When the foursome neared the cemetery, Draper and Hopkinsbut not Williamsallegedly assaulted Norwood. Williams stated that he was unaware that his friends intended Norwood any harm. But when they initiated the assault, Williams allegedly became agitated, demanded that Draper and Hopkins abandon their criminal endeavor, and then exited the vehicle when they refused. Williams claimed that he then walked to the residence of an acquaintance and borrowed bus fare to return home. As Williams told it, he was not part of the robbery and was not present when Norwood was killed. The jury was thus presented with a stark choice: either Williams was the principal in a first degree murder or he was ignorant of his friends' plans and nowhere near the cemetery when the killing occurred. Neither party argued that Williams was an accomplice to robbery or murder. Rather, both the prosecutor and defense counsel stressed their contrasting narratives. Foulkes was blunt: she called Williams a person who commits atrocious, murderous, malicious acts and then spends the rest of his days lying, covering up, ... trying to make things seem as they're not. And she emphasized, over and over again, that Williams was a murderer who intended to kill. Defense counsel, by contrast, urged the jury to adopt Williams' version of events and attempted to demonize Draper as a liar. Several times he succinctly summarized the all-or-nothing proposition facing the jury: If you believe Mr. Williams, you will acquit him of all charges. Accomplice liability was simply not in play. In light of these conflicting accounts, the trial court's decision to provide an accomplice liability charge is rather curious. [20] Nevertheless, after charging the jury on the elements of various degrees of murder (and accompanying mens rea requirements), voluntary manslaughter, robbery, and criminal conspiracy, the court stated, in pertinent part, You may find a defendant guilty of a crime without finding that he personally engaged in the conduct required for commission of that crime or even that he was personally present when the crime was committed. An accomplice is one who either plans, cooperates, assist[s], counsels or otherwise aids in the perpetration of the crime. A defendant is guilty of a crime if he is an accomplice of a person who commits that crime. The defendant does not become an accomplice merely by being present at the scene or knowing about the crime. He is an accomplice if, with the intent of promotion or facilitating commission of the crime, he solicits, commands, encourages or requests the other person to commit it or aids, or agrees to aid or attempts to aid the other person in planning or committing it. However, a defendant is not an accomplice if before the other person commits the crime, he stops his own efforts to promote or facilitate the commission of the crime, and wholly deprives his previous efforts of effectiveness or gives timely warning to the law enforcement authority or otherwise makes a proper effort to prevent the commission of the crime. You may find the defendant guilty of a crime on the theory that he was an accomplice as long as you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the crime was committed, and that the defendant was an accomplice of the person who committed it. Williams argues that this instruction unconstitutionally broadened the scope of accomplice liability because it permitted the jury to find that he was an accomplice to first degree murder without finding that he possessed the specific intent to kill. If the theory of accomplice liability were a viable one in this case, Williams might have a point. But it is not. Accordingly, the trial court's charge reveals no deficiency of constitutional dimension. To show that a jury instruction violates due process, a habeas petitioner must demonstrate both (1) that the instruction contained some `ambiguity, inconsistency, or deficiency,' and (2) that there was 'a reasonable likelihood' that the jury applied the instruction in a way that relieved the State of its burden of proving every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Waddington v. Sarausad, 555 U.S. 179, 129 S.Ct. 823, 831, 172 L.Ed.2d 532 (2009) (quoting Middleton v. McNeil, 541 U.S. 433, 437, 124 S.Ct. 1830, 158 L.Ed.2d 701 (2004) and Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 72, 112 S.Ct. 475, 116 L.Ed.2d 385 (1991)). Satisfaction of this two-part inquiry requires a federal habeas court to focus initially on the specific language challenged, Smith, 120 F.3d at 411 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted), and then to review the challenged instruction in the context of the entire charge and in light of the evidence and arguments presented at trial. Estelle, 502 U.S. at 72, 112 S.Ct. 475 ([T]he instruction `may not be judged in artificial isolation,' but must be considered in the context of the instructions as a whole and the trial record. (quoting Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U.S. 141, 147, 94 S.Ct. 396, 38 L.Ed.2d 368 (1973))); Waddington, 555 U.S. 179, 129 S.Ct. at 833 (analyzing accomplice liability charge in light of parties' closing arguments). In this fashion, a due process analysis depends as much on the language of the court's charge as it does on the particularities of a given case. In other words, the inquiry requires careful consideration of each trial's unique facts, the narratives presented by the parties, the arguments counsel delivered to the jurors before they retired to deliberate, and the charge as a whole. See Waddington, 555 U.S. 179, 129 S.Ct. at 831-33; Estelle, 502 U.S. at 72, 112 S.Ct. 475. Here, even if the trial court's accomplice liability charge was in some respect ambiguous, there is no reasonable likelihood that the jury applied the instruction in a manner that relieved the Commonwealth of its burden of proof with respect to first degree murder. The trial record makes this point plain: all of the evidence and argument indicated either that Williams was the principal killerwith the specific intent to killor that he played no role in the robbery and murder. There simply was no viable third option. The charge as a whole reflected this stark choice. The court mentioned the concept of accomplice liability sparsely. Its first degree murder instructions did not mention the concept of accomplice liability at all. [21] Instead, the charge (rightly) focused on Williams' actions and mental state. Thus, although the court provided instruction on the theory of accomplice liability, it appears to have done so out of oversight or, perhaps, carelessness. In either event, the mere provision of this stray instruction does not alter the fact that accomplice liability was a theory for which there was no evidentiary support. By including the instruction in the final charge, the court did not violate Williams' right to due process. [22] Finally, Williams contends that the trial court's instruction was nearly identical to the accomplice liability instruction that we held to be constitutionally deficient in Laird v. Horn, 414 F.3d 419 (3d Cir.2005). In Laird, co-defendants Laird and Chester left a bar along with a third individual named Milano. Milano's body was discovered the following evening in a nearby wooded area. Laird and Chester were tried together for, inter alia, murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and conspiracy. Both took the stand and admitted that they participated in the kidnapping and were present for Milano's death. Id. at 422, 426. Each denied that he intended for Milano to be killed. Id. at 422. Laird accused Chester of killing Milano and vice versa. Id. at 422, 426. The jury convicted both defendants of an array of offenses, including first degree murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault, and conspiracy. The trial court in Laird provided an accomplice liability instruction that was almost identical to the instruction given in Williams' case, but the similarities between the two proceedings essentially end there. Laird was a two-defendant trial wherein both of the accused admitted their participation in some aspect of the crimei.e., the kidnapping. See id. at 426. Neither co-defendant, however, admitted he was an accomplice to the actual homicide. It was therefore imperative for the charge to distinguish between Laird's acknowledged role as an accomplice to kidnapping and his disputed role as accomplice to first degree murder. Yet the trial court failed to make such a distinction, and failed to explain that an accomplice to kidnapping is not necessarily an accomplice to murder. Given the circumstances present in the case, it was incumbent upon the trial court to ensure that the jury understood that an accomplice for one purpose is [not] an accomplice for all purposes. Id. at 427 (quoting Smith, 120 F.3d at 414). To put it differently, under the Laird charge, the jury reasonably could have concluded that because Laird was an accomplice to kidnapping, he must also have been an accomplice to murder. The problem in Laird was not the accomplice liability instruction's linguistic imprecision per se. Rather, the instructional ambiguity worked a critical error when viewed in the context of the trial record as a whole. Williams does not acknowledge this aspect of the holding. Instead, he argues that the similarity of both instructions demonstrates constitutional error. But as we indicated above, a rote comparison of the two instructions is insufficient in a due process inquiry. See Waddington, 555 U.S. 179, 129 S.Ct. at 831-33; Estelle, 502 U.S. at 72, 112 S.Ct. 475. Although the trial judge in Laird provided an accomplice liability instruction that was nearly identical to that rendered here, there was a profound difference between each proceeding's evidence, argument, and the charges as a whole. That difference is dispositive. In Laird, the ambiguity in the charge, coupled with the balance of pertinent considerations, made it reasonably likely that the jury applied the instruction in a manner which relieved the Commonwealth of its burden of proof. There is no such likelihood here. Williams' testimonyunlike that provided by the co-defendants in Laird attempts to exculpate him completely. Accomplice liability is simply not in play. In sum, we find that the trial court's accomplice liability instruction was not constitutionally infirm. Williams' arguments to the contrary are without merit. [23]