Opinion ID: 2010891
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Convictions and Sentencing

Text: As a predicate for decision, it is important to understand precisely the indictment, the trial court's instructions, the jurors' verdicts, and the court's sentences. As to the indictment, the first count charged Wheeler with Conspiracy to Commit Murder, citing the conspiracy and first-degree murder statutes [1] and the provision for enhancing a sentence for an offense when armed. [2] The second count charged First Degree Murder While Armed (Premeditated), [3] while the third count added Possession of a Firearm During Crime of Violence or Dangerous Offense, [4] namely, the First Degree Murder While Armed (Premeditated) in the second count. The trial court instructed the jury on five separate issues related to the three counts in the indictment. First, the court instructed on the second count, first degree murder while armed (and on the lesser included offense of second degree murder while armed). [5] Second, the court gave its aiding and abetting instruction, [6] applicable to the substantive offenses charged in the second and third counts: murder and/or possession of a firearm during the crime of violence. Third, the court described the elements of the first count, conspiracy to commit murder, [7] described as a separate charge from murder itself. The court did not advert to the armed enhancement provision specified in the indictment and in the instruction for the second count. Nor did the conspiracy instruction otherwise refer to a firearm. Fourth, the court gave the Pinkerton [8] instruction as to the second and third counts that Wheeler could be found guilty of the crimes of murder and/or possession of a firearm[,] which [were] allegedly committed by a coconspirator[,] even though [Wheeler] did not participate directly in the acts constituting ... those offenses, provided that they were a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the conspiracy. [9] Finally, the trial court instructed on the essential elements of the third count, possession of a firearm during a crime of violence: [10] that the Defendant possessed a firearm (as defined); that he possessed it while committing a crime of violence; and that he possessed it knowingly and intentionally, meaning consciously, voluntarily and on purpose, not by mistake or accident. [11] In announcing their verdicts, the jurors answered guilty to each of the charges posed by the trial court: conspiracy to commit murder, first degree murder while armed, and possessing a firearm during the crime of violence. Later, at sentencing, the court imposed a sentence of sixteen months in prison for conspiracy to commit murder, forty-five years for first-degree murder while armed, and five years for possessing a firearm, all sentences to run concurrently. Thereafter, the signed sentencing order referred to convictions for Conspiracy, Murder I w/Armed, and Poss. of Firearm During Comm. of Crime of Violence. The conspiracy entry in the sentencing order did not reference the armed enhancement provision cited in the indictment. [12] There was no dispute at trial that Taylor's death was caused by a firearm. Moreover, the court made clear from the outset that the murder charge concerned an armed offense; as noted above, the court initially instructed the jury on the second count, first degree murder while armed (emphasis added). The italicized phrase, however, did not appear again in the jury instructions, when the verdict was taken, or at sentencingomissions, as we shall see, that complicate the analysis.