Opinion ID: 2630333
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Propriety of Instructing on Accessory Liability

Text: {57} Defendant argues here, as he did below, that there was insufficient evidence to warrant submission of jury instructions on accessory liability and aiding and abetting theories. We start with the proposition that a trial court is warranted in providing the jury with accurate instructions of law on all theories of the case that are supported by substantial evidence. See State v. Brown, 1996-NMSC-073, ¶ 34, 122 N.M. 724, 931 P.2d 69. In this case, while it was the State's primary theory that Defendant acted alone in the murder, Defendant had elicited evidence at trial that one or more of his friends might have been with him at the school during the evening of the murder. {58} The accessory liability instructions were therefore both justified and necessary. The evidence raising the question of whether Defendant's friends may have had some part in committing the various crimes made it important to avoid any confusion about Defendant's criminal liability for crimes that he may have committed in concert with others. The instructions correctly set forth the law imposing full criminal responsibility on accomplices to a crime, and Defendant's objections to the instructions were properly overruled. {59} Defendant's remaining jury instruction claims were not preserved in the district court, and we therefore address those claims under a fundamental error standard of review. See State v. Gonzalez, 2005-NMCA-031, ¶ 19, 137 N.M. 107, 107 P.3d 547 (stating that when a defendant does not object to the jury instructions as given, an appellate court reviews that instruction for fundamental error); Rule 12-216 NMRA. Our fundamental error power is exercised only to correct injustices that shock the conscience of the court, a term that has been used in our precedents both to describe cases with defendants who are indisputably innocent, and cases in which a mistake in the process makes a conviction fundamentally unfair notwithstanding the apparent guilt of the accused. State v. Barber, 2004-NMSC-019, ¶ 17, 135 N.M. 621, 92 P.3d 633. We have an affirmative duty to prevent a miscarriage of justice in our review of fundamental error. Reyes, 2002-NMSC-024, ¶ 42 (quoted authority omitted). While we apply the fundamental error standard with regard to Defendant's remaining instruction claims and find no miscarriage of justice, we also observe that there would have been no reversible error under any standard of jury instruction review.