Opinion ID: 1846539
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: whether the trial court erred in granting the state's jury instruction on aiding and abetting.

Text: ¶ 11. We recently addressed this Court's familiar standard of review when considering challenges to jury instructions. The Court does not single out any instruction or take instructions out of context; rather, the instructions are to be read together as a whole. Spicer v. State, 921 So.2d 292, 313 (Miss.2006) (quoting Parks v. State, 884 So.2d 738, 746 (Miss. 2004) (citations omitted)). Stated differently: When considering a challenge to a jury instruction on appeal, we do not review jury instructions in isolation; rather, we read them as a whole to determine if the jury was properly instructed. Burton ex rel. Bradford v. Barnett, 615 So.2d 580, 583 (Miss.1993). Similarly, this Court has stated that [i]n determining whether error lies in the granting or refusal of various instructions, the instructions actually given must be read as a whole. When so read, if the instructions fairly announce the law of the case and create no injustice, no reversible error will be found. Coleman v. State, 697 So.2d 777, 782 (Miss.1997) (quoting Collins v. State, 691 So.2d 918 (Miss. 1997)). In other words, if all instructions taken as a whole fairly, but not necessarily perfectly, announce the applicable rules of law, no error results. Milano v. State, 790 So.2d 179, 184 (Miss. 2001). ¶ 12. Wilson argues that an improper jury instruction was granted. The objectionable jury instruction was tendered to the Court as the State's instruction number S-4, and once given by the trial judge, the instruction was designated for the record by the trial judge as Jury Instruction No. 5. This instruction stated: The Court instructs the jury that if you find from the evidence that the crime of shoplifting was committed in this case; each person who was present, consenting to the commission of the crime and doing any act which aided, assisted or encouraged the crime, is guilty to the same extent as if he committed the whole crime. (Emphasis added). Wilson argues in her brief to this Court: The obvious flaw in the instruction is that it does not require that Christine knowingly, intentionally or willfully do an act to aid, assist or encourage the crime. Rather, it allows the jury to convict her if the others committed the crime, she knew of it but was merely present and did an act which incidentally assisted or encouraged the crime even though she may have had not [sic] intent to further the crime. (Emphasis in original). We fail to see the distinction between the language knowingly, intentionally or willfully do an act to aid, assist or encourage the crime, and present, consenting [5] to the commission of the crime and doing any act which aided, assisted or encouraged the crime. In order for Wilson, as a co-conspirator, to be present and consenting to the commission of the crime of shoplifting, she must have known of the crime to be perpetrated and intentionally and willfully participated in some element of the completed crime. We upheld similar language in a jury instruction in Kelly v. State, 493 So.2d 356, 359 (Miss.1986): The court instructs the jury that each person present at the time, and consenting to and encouraging the commission of a crime, and knowingly, wilfully and feloniously doing any act which is an ingredient to the crime, or immediately connected with it, or leading to its commission, is as much a principal as if he had with his own hand committed the whole offense; and if you believe from the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the Defendant, Ike Lee Kelly, did wilfully, knowingly, unlawfully and feloniously do any act which is an ingredient of the crime of armed robbery or immediately connected with it, or leading to its commission, then and in that event, you should find the Defendant guilty as charged. Id. (Emphasis in original). ¶ 13. Obviously, in Kelly, we approved of the word consenting, and the language of the jury instruction in the case sub judice, notwithstanding the omission of the phrase knowingly, intentionally or willfully, meets our requirement that a jury instruction not simply state that a defendant merely approved of the crime. Keeping in mind the admonition that we must read and consider the jury instructions as a whole to determine if the jury was properly instructed on the applicable law, in addition to Jury Instruction No. 5 given in today's case, the jury also received from the trial court Jury Instruction No. 2, which stated in pertinent part that the defendant was presumed innocent and before the jury could find the defendant guilty of the crime charged, the State had to prove each and every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Jury Instruction No. 3, the elements instruction, informed the jury that before the jury could find Wilson guilty of the crime of felony shoplifting, the jury had to find that Wilson (1) did wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously take possession of merchandise held by and offered or displayed for sale by Dillard's Department Store, (2) having a total value over $250.00, (3) with the intention and purpose of converting such merchandise to her own use without paying the merchant's stated price, and that if the State failed to prove any one or more of [these] elements beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury shall find [Wilson] not guilty. ¶ 14. With these various jury instructions before us in the case sub judice, we return to Jury Instruction No. 5. The first phrase of this instruction states: The Court instructs the jury that if you find from the evidence that the crime of shoplifting was committed in this case; thus, before the jury could consider the remainder of the instruction, it had to find from the evidence that the crime of shoplifting had been committed. In order to find that the crime of felony shoplifting had been committed, the jury had to find that the State had proven beyond a reasonable doubt each of the three elements of the crime of felony shoplifting as set out in Jury Instruction No. 3. In reading Jury Instruction No. 5 in conjunction with Jury Instruction No. 3 and the other jury instructions, if the jury found that the crime of shoplifting was committed in this case, then the jury was to consider the remainder of Jury Instruction No. 5, which stated: each person who was present, consenting to the commission of the crime and doing any act which aided, assisted or encouraged the crime, is guilty to the same extent as if he committed the whole crime. ¶ 15. Returning to the evidence, which we view in the light most favorable to the jury verdict, Officer Wilson observed suspicious activities at Dillard's involving four persons, one of whom was Christine Wilson. When he approached the location where the four suspects were standing along with the merchandise which they had gathered, they scattered, with Wilson departing Dillard's into the mall area along with Harris, who had one of the bags of stolen merchandise. This bag of merchandise did not have the second tag or label which the cash register attendant applied to the merchandise upon it's being rung up. Likewise, no one could produce a sales ticket or receipt for the merchandise found in the bag. Officer Wilson's version of the facts as to the contents and status of the merchandise found in the bags was verified by Ridgeland police officer Kevin Mathis. Certainly, from this evidence, the jury was justified in finding that the crime of felony shoplifting had been committed and that Wilson was present, consenting to the commission of the crime and doing any act which aided, assisted or encouraged the crime. Even though she did not stuff every item of merchandise into the two bags, and personally carry the two bags of merchandise, worth more than $1,100, from Dillard's without paying for the merchandise, she clearly acted in concert with the other three shoplifters. Jury Instruction No. 5 in no way lessened the responsibility of the jury in returning a guilty verdict against Wilson only if each and every element of the crime of felony shoplifting was proven beyond a reasonable doubt as to Wilson. ¶ 16. With this being said, we acknowledge that our case law reveals that one of the main concerns raised by defendants to aiding and abetting instructions similar to today's Jury Instruction No. 5 is that, contrary to the general elements of the crime instruction in which the jury is always informed that the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt each and every element of the crime charged, such an instruction as submitted and given in Kelly diminishes the responsibility of the jury in that the jury can find a defendant guilty of the charged offense even if the defendant is proven to be guilty of committing only one element of the offense. We addressed these concerns in Kelly: The appellant contends that this instruction would allow conviction of someone who is merely present at the time of the crime but had no intent to commit the crime. It is a well-established rule that the jury instructions actually given must be read as a whole. Norman v. State, 385 So.2d 1298, 1303 (Miss.1980). In the instant case, the court gave instruction S-1, which properly instructed the jury as to the elements of the crime, the burden of proof, and the requisite intent. Based upon the above, the jury could have properly found the appellant guilty of armed robbery from the instructions given. See also White v. State, 330 So.2d 877, 879 (Miss.1976) (jury instruction substantially identical to S-2 was approved by this Court). It is suggested that the words element of be substituted hereafter for ingredient to in the instruction. Kelly, 493 So.2d at 359. ¶ 17. Wilson also argues that because Jury Instruction No. 5 is incompatible with the Fifth Circuit's Pattern Jury Instruction on Aiding and Abetting which we prospectively adopted in Milano v. State, 790 So.2d 179 (Miss.2001), the giving of Jury Instruction No. 5 in today's case was plain error. In Milano, this Court upheld Timothy John Milano's conviction of capital murder and kidnapping. We thoroughly addressed aiding and abetting instructions, and although lengthy, we quote extensively from Milano since this language is instructive and critical to today's discussion on this issue: The first issue presented to this Court is whether jury instructions S-13 and S-14, read together with the other instructions, fairly announced the law. We find that they did. Over the objection of defense counsel, the trial court allowed instructions S-13 and S-14 on aiding and abetting. These instructions are identical, except that S-13 applies to capital murder and S-14 applies to kidnaping, the relevant text of which is set out below: If you believe from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the Defendant, Timothy John Milano, did willfully, unlawfully and feloniously do any act which is an element of (capital murder/kidnaping) with which he is charged, or, immediately connected with it, or, leading to its commission, then and in that event, you should find the Defendant guilty of (capital murder/kidnaping). (Emphasis added). The problem with these instructions is that they allow for a guilty verdict if the defendant did any act which is an element of the crime. Contrary to these instructions, there were three instructions preceding these two that specifically addressed the burden of the State. For example, S-4, S-6-A, and S-7 each provide that if the State has failed to prove any one or more of the above elements beyond a reasonable doubt, then you shall find the Defendant not guilty of [the crime]. Each jury instruction that specifically addressed the crimes charged also specifically stated that the State must prove every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt or the defendant is to be found not guilty. In Hornburger v. State, 650 So.2d 510, 515 (Miss.1995), this Court held that the jury was improperly instructed by a similar aiding and abetting instruction. However, when the instruction was read together with other instructions presented to the jury, the instructions adequately informed the jury of the law which made the improper instruction harmless error. Id. See also Gray v. State, 487 So.2d 1304, 1308 (Miss.1986) (when instructions are read together, no error can be predicated on failure of one instruction to set out properly a necessary element of the crime, where the element was included correctly in other instructions). Milano argues that recently similar instructions have been found to be reversible error. In Berry v. State, 728 So.2d 568, 571 (Miss.1999), this Court examined a jury instruction regarding the crime of aiding and abetting the transfer of cocaine. The jury instructions in Berry contained language substantively identical to the above instructions, except that the named crime was transfer of cocaine. However, in Berry, this Court stated, in this case, however, we find that reading the instructions as a whole did not cure the error resulting from the improper instruction. Id. at 570. In Lester v. State, 744 So.2d 757, 760 (Miss.1999), this Court also reversed a case based on similar jury instructions. As in Berry, this Court found that, there is nothing in the other instructions which cures this. Id. However, in this case, there were three preceding instructions that properly placed the burden on the State to prove every element of the crime. The jury was fully instructed that if all the elements were not proven beyond a reasonable doubt, Milano was to be found not guilty. Accordingly, the jury could not have been confused when all instructions were considered and read together. We thus find the error harmless. The same problematic jury instruction used in Hornburger, Berry, and Lester is once again before this Court. To avoid any further confusion, today, we prospectively adopt the Fifth Circuit's Pattern Jury Instruction on Aiding and Abetting due to continuing litigation and confusion over this issue. The use of this instruction should cure future problems regarding this issue. The instruction is as follows: The guilt of a defendant in a criminal case may be established without proof that the defendant personally did every act constituting the offense alleged. The law recognizes that, ordinarily, anything a person can do for himself may also be accomplished by that person through the direction of another person as his or her agent, by acting in concert with, or under the direction of, another person or persons in a joint effort or enterprise. If another person is acting under the direction of the defendant or if the defendant joins another person and performs acts with the intent to commit a crime, then the law holds the defendant responsible for the acts and conduct of such other persons just as though the defendant had committed the acts or engaged in such conduct. Before any defendant may be held criminally responsible for the acts of others it is necessary that the accused deliberately associate himself in some way with the crime and participate in it with the intent to bring about the crime. Of course, mere presence at the scene of a crime and knowledge that a crime is being committed are not sufficient to establish that a defendant either directed or aided and abetted the crime unless you find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was a participant and not merely a knowing spectator. In other words, you may not find any defendant guilty unless you find beyond a reasonable doubt that every element of the offense as defined in these instructions was committed by some person or persons, and that the defendant voluntarily participated in its commission with the intent to violate the law. Fifth Cir. Pattern Jury Instructions (Criminal) 2.06 (Aiding and Abetting) (Agency) (1998). For the above reasons, we find that jury instructions S-13 and S-14 were erroneous. However, read with the other instructions which properly stated the law and required the jury to find that all elements of the offense had been proven before Milano could be found guilty, this error was harmless. Milano, 790 So.2d at 184-185, ¶¶ 15-22 (Miss.2001) (emphasis in original). ¶ 18. In sum, the jury instructions in today's case, when read as a whole, clearly required the jury to find Wilson guilty only if the State met its burden of proof on each element of the crime. Again, our longstanding rule is to read jury instructions as a whole to determine if the jury was erroneously instructed. Savory, 954 So.2d at 932. Even though Jury Instruction No. 5 was not in the form which we prospectively adopted in Milano, from the record before us, we find no error, much less reversible error, in the trial court's giving of Jury Instruction No. 5, when we read this instruction along with all the other jury instructions which were given. See also Duncan v. State, 939 So.2d 772, 779-81 (Miss.2006) (trial court held not in error for granting jury instruction virtually identical to one approved in Milano ); Brengettcy v. State, 794 So.2d 987, 997-98 (Miss.2001) (post- Milano decision of this Court approving aiding and abetting instruction not in the form adopted in Milano, distinguishing Berry v. State, 728 So.2d 568, 570-71 (Miss.1999), and Liggins v. State, 726 So.2d 180, 184-85 (Miss.1998)). [6] As we stated in Brengettcy, [t]he error which led to reversal in Liggins is simply not present here. Brengettcy, 794 So.2d at 998. ¶ 19. While we again remind the trial bench and bar of the aiding and abetting instruction which we adopted in Milano in order to cure future problems, we find, based on the reasons stated, that this issue is without merit.