Opinion ID: 3011640
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Due Process Challenge to Jury Instructions

Text: Duncan contends that the trial court's defective accomplice-liability instruction deprived him of due process.6 More specifically, he argues that the instruction created the mis[-]impression that, if the jury found the principal guilty of murder, they also had to convict the accomplice of murder, Br. for Appellant at 41-42, and effectively withdrew the lesser manslaughter charges from the jury's consideration. As an initial matter, the Supreme Court has stated that the fact that [an] instruction was allegedly incorrect under state law is not a basis for habeas relief. Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 71-72 (1991); see also id. at 67 (We have stated many times that federal habeas corpus r elief does not lie for errors of state law.) (quotations omitted). Rather, a habeas court must consider  `whether the ailing instruction by itself so infected the entire trial that the resulting conviction violates due process,' . . . not merely whether `the instruction is undesirable, err oneous, or even universally condemned.'  Henderson v. Kibbe, 431 U.S. 145, 154 (1977) (quoting Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U.S. 141, 146-47 (1973)). The burden of demonstrating that an err oneous instruction was so prejudicial that it will support a collateral attack on the constitutional validity of a state court's judgment is even greater than the showing required to establish plain error on direct appeal. Id. In determining whether the accomplice-liability charge at Duncan's trial satisfies this burden, we must remember the Supreme Court's insistence that a single instruction to a jury may not be judged in artificial isolation, but must be viewed in _________________________________________________________________ 6. In its PCR opinion, the New Jersey Supr eme Court found Duncan's direct challenge to the defective jury instructions was barred because he had not raised the issue at trial or on direct appeal. The parties now dispute whether Duncan has exhausted this claim for purposes of his federal habeas petition. Because this claim is clearly without merit, we decline to address the parties' exhaustion ar guments. See 28 U.S.C. S 2254(b)(2) (An application for a writ of habeas corpus may be denied on the merits, notwithstanding the failure of the applicant to exhaust the remedies available in the courts of the State.). 22 the context of the overall charge. Cupp, 414 U.S. at 14647. A review of the instructions in this case does not support Duncan's contention that they infected his trial. In Bielkiewicz, upon which Duncan relies, the court reversed the defendants' murder conviction because the accompliceliability instruction effectively precluded the jury from considering lesser offenses under an accomplice theory. The court was concerned that  `[w]here one of the elements of the offense charged remains in doubt, but the defendant is plainly guilty of some offense, the jury is likely to resolve its doubts in favor of conviction.'  267 N.J. 534, 632 A.2d at 285 (quoting Keeble v. United States, 412 U.S. 205, 212-13 (1973)) (emphasis in original). However, the context of the instruction in Bielkiewicz was very dif ferent than it was here. In Bielkiewicz, the co-defendants were tried jointly; the trial court did not inform the jury that the defendants could be convicted of the lesser manslaughter of fenses on an accomplice theory, and did not even mention accomplice liability in instructing the jury with r espect to these lesser included offenses. 267 N.J. Super. at 531, 632 A.2d at 283. By contrast, the trial court in Duncan's case began its instructions on the first count of Duncan's indictment with a very detailed charge describing the elements of purposeful or knowing murder, then continued by dir ecting the jury that if it did not find purpose or knowledge, it must consider the lesser included manslaughter of fenses which it described in detail. Only after instructing the jury on all counts of the indictment did the court refer to the State's complicity theory and give the jury its accomplice-liability instruction, which it in no way restricted to the murder charges. Therefore, the jury in this case was clearly told that it should consider the lesser manslaughter of fenses, like the murder charge, under both dir ect and accomplice theories of liability. We can understand the concern of the court in Bielkiewicz, where the co-defendants wer e tried jointly, that there could be some misunderstanding or some compulsion to treat both defendants alike. Here, adequate instructions were given and we have no reason to believe that the jury 23 did not understand that the accomplice-liability instruction could apply to either type offense. Nothing in the instructions prevented the jury from considering the lesser offenses under an accomplice theory of liability. At most, the fault that one might argue would be one of omission, which the Supreme Court has stated is less serious than a misstatement of the law. See Henderson, 431 U.S. at 155. (An omission, or an incomplete instruction, is less likely to be prejudicial than a misstatement of the law.). Therefore, we cannot hold that the absence of the specific instruction later required by Bielkiewicz, when viewed in the context of this case, so infected the trial with unfairness as to violate Duncan's due process rights.