Opinion ID: 775822
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Jury Instruction: Accomplice Liability

Text: 37 Petitioner argues that the trial court's guilt-phase instruction concerning accomplice liability deprived him of a fair trial. Specifically, he contends that the trial court's instruction precluded the jury from giving any meaningful evidentiary consideration to Petitioner's guilt phase defense -in effect, a verdict was directed against him on the issue of actual perpetration of the homicide. 38 As noted, Petitioner's primary guilt-phase argument was that Barrett had killed Van Zandt. Barrett and Eckstrom testified that Petitioner had killed Van Zandt. Petitioner requested the following jury instruction concerning accomplice liability: 39 An accomplice is a person involved in the commission of the offense charged against the defendant whether by directly committing the act constituting the offense or aiding and abetting in its commission. A person can be an accomplice even though the acts were committed at a different time and place than the acts charged against the defendant. 40 The district court declined to give that instruction. Instead, the court instructed the jury as follows on the issue of accomplice testimony (the particular instruction to which Petitioner objects is underlined): 41 An accomplice is one who is subject to prosecution for the identical offense charged against the defendant on trial. 42 To be an accomplice, the person must have aided, promoted, encouraged or instigated by act or advice the commission of such offense with knowledge of the unlawful purpose of the person that committed the offense and with the intent or purpose of committing, encouraging or facilitating the commission of the offense. 43 A defendant cannot be found guilty based upon the testimony of an accomplice unless such testimony is corroborated by other evidence which tends to connect such defendant with the commission of the offense. 44 To corroborate the testimony of an accomplice there must be evidence of some act or fact related to the offense which, if believed by itself, and without any aid, interpretation or direction from the testimony of the accomplice tends to connect the defendant with the commission of the offense charged. 45 However, it is not necessary that the evidence of corroboration be sufficient in itself to establish every element of the offense charged or that it corroborate every fact to which the accomplice testified. 46 In determining whether an accomplice has been corroborated, you must first assume the testimony of the accomplice has been removed from the case. You must then determine whether there is any remaining evidence which tends to connect the defendant with the commission of the offense. 47 If there is not such independent evidence which tends to connect the defendant with the commission of the offense, the testimony of the accomplice is not corroborated. 48 If there is such independent evidence which you believe, then the testimony of the accomplice is corroborated. 49 The required corroboration of the testimony of an accomplice may not be supplied by the testimony of any or all of his accomplices, but must come from other evidence. 50 Merely assenting to or aiding or assisting in the commission of a crime without knowledge of the unlawful purpose of the perpetrator is not criminal. And a person so assenting to or aiding and assisting in the commission of a crime without such knowledge is not an accomplice in the commission of such crime. 51 If the crimes of robbery and murder were committed by anyone, the witness' [sic], Avette Barrett and Allison Eckstrom, were accomplices as a matter or law, and their testimony is subject to the rule requiring corroboration. 52 The testimony of an accomplice ought to be viewed with distrust and received with care, caution and suspicion for the reason that its very source is tainted. 53 Petitioner argues, as he has throughout these proceedings, that the emphasized part of the instruction explicitly and impliedly told the jurors that Barrett and Eckstrom were witnesses and assistants to Petitioner -in other words, they were to give no consideration to Petitioner's argument that they killed Van [Zandt], and that he did not.  That is, he reads the phrase the witness' [sic], Avette Barrett and Allison Eckstrom to refer to the two as witnesses at the crime scene, rather than as witnesses at trial. 54 On direct appeal, the California Supreme Court concluded that the challenged instruction was not erroneous and that, even if the instruction was erroneous, the error was harmless in view of the overwhelming evidence of Petitioner's guilt. Morris, 807 P.2d at 983. In this proceeding, the magistrate judge concluded that the instruction was not improper, and the district court adopted the magistrate judge's conclusion. 55 When considering an allegedly erroneous jury instruction in a habeas proceeding, an appellate court first considers whether the error in the challenged instruction, if any, amounted to constitutional error. Calderon v. Coleman, 525 U.S. 141, 146 (1998). If so, the court then considers whether the error was harmless. Id. at 145, 119 S. Ct. 500. 56 The test for constitutional error is set out in Boyde v. California, 494 U.S. 370, 380 (1990). To determine whether constitutional error occurred, an appellate court askswhether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury has applied the challenged instruction in a way that prevents the consideration of constitutionally relevant evidence. Id. That inquiry also can be described as having two parts: (1) whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury understood an assertedly ambiguous instruction to mean what the defendant suggests it means; and (2) if so, whether the instruction, so understood, was unconstitutional as applied to the defendant.  Coleman, 525 U.S. at 147. 57 If the court finds constitutional error, then it applies the test for harmless error from Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619 (1993). Under Brecht, the appellate court considers whether the error had a  `substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict.'  Id. at 637, 113 S. Ct. 1710 (quoting Katteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776 (1946)). If we are in grave doubt as to whether the error had such an effect, the petitioner is entitled to the writ. Coleman v. Calderon, 210 F.3d 1047, 1051 (9th Cir. 2000). 58 Turning to the bedrock requirement of constitutional error, Petitioner argues that the challenged instruction was reasonably likely to be understood by the jury to declare that, as a matter of law, Barrett and Eckstrom were assistants and witnesses during the murder of Van Zandt. Therefore, Petitioner argues, the instruction precluded the jury from considering his defense that Barrett and Eckstrom actually beat Van Zandt to death. 59 We agree with the magistrate judge and the district court that the jury was not reasonably likely to interpret the instruction in that manner. A single instruction is not viewed in isolation, but in the context of the overall charge. United States v. Harrison, 34 F.3d 886, 889 (9th Cir. 1994). The challenged instruction was one in a long series of instructions about accomplice testimony. In context, it is reasonably apparent that the series of instructions referred to the trial testimony of Barrett and Eckstrom; there was no other witness at trial who reasonably could be viewed as Petitioner'saccomplice. In context, the most reasonable construction that the jury could have given to the trial court's phrasethe witness' [sic], Avette Barrett and Allison Eckstrom  was the two women who appeared as witnesses in this trial and whose testimony I am in the middle of talking to you about, Avette Barrett and Allison Eckstrom. Petitioner's proffered construction of that phrase -the witnesses to the crime, Avette Barrett and Allison Eckstrom -does not fit with the surrounding instructions and is not reasonably likely in view of the charge as a whole. 60 Nor is it reasonably likely that the jury understood the instruction to mean that they were required to view the two women as assistants and Petitioner as theactual perpetrator. Petitioner substitutes the word assistant for accomplice, but the instructions do not use the wordassistant. Rather, the instructions state, among other things, that an accomplice is one who is subject to prosecution for the identical offense charged against the defendant; that a person may be an accomplice as the result of having aided, promoted, encouraged or instigated by act or advice the commission of such offense; that an accomplice must have the intent or purpose of committing, encouraging or facilitating the offense; and that, if the crimes of robbery and murder were committed by anyone, Barrett and Eckstrom were accomplices, and their testimony required collaboration. (Emphasis added.) Viewing the instructions as a whole, the instructions do not state that the jury was required as a matter of law to view the two women as assistants. Rather, they correctly instruct that if the two women had any active role in the crime -including, of course, actually killing Van Zandt -their testimony required corroboration. There is no reasonable likelihood that any juror would have understood the challenged instruction in the manner Petitioner proposes, as directing a verdict against him on the issue of actual perpetration of the homicide. Accordingly, there was no error, and a fortiori, no constitutional error. 61