Opinion ID: 1902219
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Instruction on Joint Principals

Text: Giving the following instruction is challenged. A principal in the first degree, again, is the immediate perpetrator of the crime while a principal in the second degree is one who did not commit the crime with his own hands, but was present aiding and abetting the perpetrator. Under Maryland law, only a principal in the first degree may be sentenced to death. You are further instructed that if you find from the evidence that two people inflicted the fatal wound, you may find that they are joint principals in the first degree. Booth concedes that this is a correct statement of law; nonetheless, he says it was not applicable in light of the evidence before the jury. See Johnson v. State, 303 Md. 487, 512, 495 A.2d 1, 13 (1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1093, 106 S.Ct. 868, 88 L.Ed.2d 907 (1986); Sergeant Co. v. Pickett, 285 Md. 186, 194, 401 A.2d 651, 655 (1979). The instruction was generated by evidence, most of which was elicited through the defendant's witness, Dr. William Brownlee, a former deputy medical examiner for the District of Columbia. Dr. Brownlee testified that the wounds inflicted on Mrs. Bronstein were consistent with their having been made by a certain bent knife found under or next to her body. There was a nick on the blade of that knife. The witness also testified that the wounds to Mr. Bronstein were consistent with having been made by the same bent knife. Under questioning by the prosecutor and the court, Dr. Brownlee said that the nick on that knife was caused by something metallic, possibly a knife. The fact that Dr. Brownlee himself did not hold the opinion that the nick was created by another knife is not determinative. He acknowledged that [i]t would be a hypothesis that the nick was caused by striking another knife at the same time of the perpetration. Because there was other evidence sufficient to show that Booth stabbed Mr. Bronstein, there were sufficient inferences from Dr. Brownlee's evidence to permit instructing the jury on the legal effect of a finding, if any, that Booth and another jointly stabbed Mr. Bronstein.