Opinion ID: 2315121
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The lack of evidentiary basis for the aiding and abetting instruction.

Text: When the prosecutor initially requested an aiding and abetting instruction, the judge commented that in light of the evidence that Brooks was inside the restaurant, while Ms. Murphy was outside it near the tools that could have been used to accomplish the break-in, there would have been an evidentiary basis for regarding Ms. Murphy, but not Brooks, as an aider or abettor. We think that this was a correct assessment of the evidence insofar as it concerned the respective roles of the two individuals. We agree with Brooks that there was no evidentiary basis for an instruction predicated on the notion that Brooks was an aider and abettor and someone else the principal. As Brooks points out in his reply brief, nothing in the record really indicates that Ms. Murphy was the principal brain or brawn of the attempt to burglarize the Lincoln [House] Restaurant. Moreover, there is no basis in the record for the notion that Brooks was aiding or abetting an unknown third party. The common law was burdened with obscure and technical distinctions between principals and accessories, and these refinements had the potential for derailing prosecutions for reasons unrelated to the merits. If the defendant were charged as a principal he could not be convicted upon proof that he was an accessory. Likewise, one charged only as an accessory could not be convicted if the evidence established that he was instead a principal. 2 WAYNE R. LAFAVE & AUSTIN W. SCOTT, JR., SUBSTANTIVE CRIMINAL LAW, § 6.6, at 131 (1986). A great deal could depend on the skill and artistry of the pleader. The statutory law of this jurisdiction, however, provides in pertinent part that all persons advising, inciting, or conniving at the offense, or aiding or abetting the principal offender, shall be charged as principals and not as accessories. D.C.Code § 22-105 (1989). Section 22-105 extended [the] doctrine of vicarious responsibility to additional classes of offenders by treating them as principals. Hazel v. United States, 353 A.2d 280, 283 n. 9 (D.C.1976); see Maxey v. United States, 30 App.D.C. 63, 72-73 (1907). Doctrinal distinctions have been supplanted by a more down-to-earth and practical approach. Under § 22-105 and its federal counterpart, 18 U.S.C. § 2(a), [c]riminal accountability does not depend inexorably upon personal performance of the acts comprising an offense. He who assists the perpetrator of crime in its commission is as much answerable as if he had engaged in all of its essential aspects himself. United States v. Staten, 189 U.S.App.D.C. 100, 108, 581 F.2d 878, 886 (1978) (footnote omitted). The classic articulation of the aiding and abetting doctrine, written by Judge Learned Hand and subsequently adopted by the Supreme Court [8] and by our own, [9] teaches that in order to aid or abet another to commit a crime, it is necessary that a defendant in some sort associate himself with the venture, that he participate in it as in something that he wishes to bring about, that he seek by his action to make it succeed. United States v. Peoni, 100 F.2d 401, 402 (2d Cir.1938). But [w]hile a defendant may be charged and convicted as the principal even though the proof is that he was only an aider and abettor...., there must be evidence that someone other than defendant was the principal whom the defendant aided and abetted. Payton, supra, 305 A.2d at 513 (citations omitted) (emphasis added); see also Gayden v. United States, 584 A.2d 578, 582 (D.C.1990), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S.Ct. 137, 116 L.Ed.2d 104 (1991) (quoting Payton ); Head v. United States, 451 A.2d 615, 626 (D.C.1982) (reversal may be required where an aiding and abetting instruction has been given if the evidence of the existence of a principal is vague). To be an aider and abettor, one must aid or abet or procure someone else to commit a substantive offense.... One cannot aid or abet himself. United States v. Martin, 747 F.2d 1404, 1407 (11th Cir.1985) (emphasis added). It is not essential that the principal in the operation be identified, but the prosecution is still required to establish that someone has that status. Gayden, supra, 584 A.2d at 582; Staten, supra, 189 U.S.App. D.C. at 109, 581 F.2d at 887. Any impartial assessment of the record in this case compels the conclusion that the purported evidence that there was a principal in the burglary whom Brooks was assisting is not merely vague, cf. Head, supra, 451 A.2d at 626, but for all practical purposes non-existent. To conclude that Brooks was an aider or abettor, the jury would have to engage in an irrational or bizarre reconstruction of the facts of the case. Anderson v. United States, 490 A.2d 1127, 1130 (D.C.1985) (per curiam); see also Wood v. United States, 472 A.2d 408, 410 (D.C.1984). As the judge correctly observed when first confronted with the issue under discussion, there was evidence from which one could reasonably infer that Ms. Murphy the person outside the establishment near the toolsmight have aided and abetted Brooks, who was allegedly seen inside the restaurant and apprehended after fleeing from it to avoid apprehension. That the man who burglarized the premises may have had an accomplice, however, does not convert him into the aider or abettor; rather, it tends to identify him as the principal who was aided or abetted by another. [10] Even if the trial judge had found Ms. Murphy to be the potential principaland the judge did not [11] we could find no substantial basis in the record for sustaining such a ruling. Nor is the aiding and abetting instruction supported by any questions Brooks asked of prosecution witnesses or by anything he said in closing argument. No prosecution witness saw or heard or knew of a missing link suspect or of any intruder other than Brooks himself. The judge instructed the jurors that you may consider only the evidence properly admitted in the case, including the sworn testimony of the witnesses. He also explained that the statements and the arguments of counsel, including in this case, Mr. Brooks', are not evidence. Jurors are presumed to follow instructions, Coates v. United States, 558 A.2d 1148, 1150 (D.C.1989), and Brooks' suggestion that there might have been a third party who burglarized the restaurant could not by some form of forensic alchemy convert non-evidence into evidence. But even if Brooks' statements as pro se counsel could be deemed in some way to have expanded the record [12] and we do not think they canthere still would be no evidentiary support for the notion that Brooks may have been an aider or abettor. The missing link suspect hypothesis must be predicated entirely on the assumption that the man who was seen in the restaurant was not Brooks but somebody else. But if that hypothesis is correct and the missing link suspect was the one who broke in, then there is no evidence whatever that Brooks aided and abetted him. The only evidence against Brooks is that he was identified as the burglar inside the restaurant and apprehended as he left it. If he was not the man inside, then there was simply no evidence of wrongdoing on his part. In other words, Brooks was either the principal or a non-participant. There is no evidentiary predicate for finding that he was an aider or abettor.