Opinion ID: 3015454
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Accomplice Liability Charge.

Text: In In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358 (1970), the Supreme Court held that due process “protects the accused against 7 Briefly stated, the district court relied in part upon our holding in Doctor v. Walters, 96 F.3d 675, 683-84 (3d Cir. 1996), and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s reversal of the “relaxed waiver rule” in Commonwealth v. Albrecht, 720 A.2d 693, 700 (Pa. 1998), to conclude that Laird’s claim was not procedurally defaulted and that no “adequate and independent” state procedural rule barred federal habeas review of the merits of Laird’s challenge to the accomplice liability charge. 13 conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.” Id. at 364. Laird argues that the jury instructions pertaining to accomplice liability for first-degree murder relieved the Commonwealth of its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to kill Milano. Under Pennsylvania law, first-degree murder requires the specific intent to kill, and that mens rea is also required of accomplices and co-conspirators. See 18 Pa. C.S. § 2502(a); Smith v. Horn, 120 F.3d 400, 410 (3d Cir. 1997) (citing Commonwealth v. Huffman, 638 A.2d 961 (Pa. 1994)). On habeas review, we must analyze the challenged portions of the jury instruction in context with the entire charge and determine “whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury has applied the challenged instructions in a way that violates the Constitution.” Smith, 120 F.3d at 411. During the guilt phase of Laird’s trial, the court gave the following instruction on accomplice liability: A person is guilty of a particular crime if he is an accomplice of another person who commits that crime. A defendant does not become an accomplice merely by being present at the scene or knowing about a crime. He is an accomplice, however, if with the intent of promotion or facilitating commission of a crime he solicits, or commands or encourages or requests the other person to commit it or if he aids, agrees to aid, or attempts to aid the other person in planning the 14 crime or committing the crime. . . . You may find the defendant guilty of a particular crime on the theory that he was an accomplice so long as you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the crime was committed and the defendant was an accomplice of the person who committed it. App. at 231-32. Thereafter, the court gave the following instruction on first-degree murder: You may find a defendant guilty of first degree murder if you are satisfied that the following four elements have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt: First, that Anthony Milano is dead. Second, that a defendant or an accomplice of the defendant killed him. Third, that the killing was with specific intent to kill. And, fourth, that the killing was with malice as I have defined that term for you. A killing is with specific intent to kill if it is willful, deliberate, and premeditated; that is, if it is committed by a person who has a fully informed intent to kill and is conscious of his own intent. App. at 253-54. As noted above, Chester and Laird both testified that the other killed Milano. Each defendant admitted participating in 15 the kidnaping, but denied any intent to kill Milano or to help the other kill him. Since Laird was convicted of conspiracy, kidnaping and aggravated assault as well as murder generally, he argues that the instructions allowed the jury to convict him of first-degree murder as Chester’s accomplice even if the jury was not convinced of a shared intent to kill. The Commonwealth attempts to counter by arguing that “it is logical that the subsequent references to ‘accomplice’ were made in reference to the particular offense that the trial court was discussing.” Appellant’s Br. at 35. The Commonwealth therefore urges us to infer that the jury understood an “accomplice” to first-degree murder must have the specific intent to kill required for a conviction of that crime. However, that argument stretches the contours of the challenged jury instruction beyond the words of the charge. Moreover, we have already rejected the identical position in Smith. There, Smith and his accomplices killed their victim while robbing a pharmacy, and the trial court gave an accomplice liability charge that was nearly identical to the one at issue here. Relevant portions of that charge are quoted at l e n g t h b e l o w . 8 8 In Smith, the court first explained the crime of homicide without referring to the specific degrees of that crime. The court then explained the crime of conspiracy without referring to a substantive crime: You should ... determine ... whether there was the requisite intent to enter into this conspiracy to 16 commit the robbery and the killing which the Commonwealth contends flowed therefrom or whether there was the requisite intent to enter in and be the accomplice with the other in bringing this about. That is to say, did Clifford Smith agree, although not necessarily by words, but by conduct and circumstances to bring about this robbery which, in turn, led to the ultimate shooting, so the Commonwealth contends, and the killing of Richard Sharp? If so, then the major basis of conspiratorial liability exists as to him. Smith, 120 F.3d at 406 (alteration in original). The court next explained the various degrees of murder in context with the concept of accomplice liability: You would ... have to decide whether the act of the perpetrator, or his accomplice, at the time of the killing was acting [sic] with malice, as we have defined that term to you. Was he acting willfully, deliberately and with premeditation, although at that time not having the specific intent to kill, but having the specific intent to inflict grievous bodily harm upon Richard Sharp, because that really is the distinction between third degree murder and first degree murder.... If you would conclude that there was specific intent to take life, you would then have to determine if it was second degree murder, or as we call it felony murder, because it involves killing incidental to a felony.... [F]or persons to be accomplices in felony murder they must have a common design. In other 17 Smith claimed that the charge denied him a fair trial. In reviewing the challenged jury instruction, we said: “nothing in this charge would lead the jury to think that, when the court instructed the jury on murder, and the court used the word ‘accomplice,’ that word meant only ‘accomplice in the murder.’ Indeed, this charge reinforces the notion that an accomplice for one purpose is an accomplice for all purposes.” Id. at 414. That is precisely the problem here. The Commonwealth attempts to distinguish Smith by arguing that the only focus of Chester and Laird was harming Milano. According to the Commonwealth, unlike Smith, Laird and Chester did not also agree to commit a crime such as theft or robbery. However, that position ignores the record. Chester words, the shared intent to commit that felony, the robbery in this case, and in furtherance thereof the killing was perpetrated as a natural act which flowed from the robbery itself. However, ... even though you would conclude that there was the felony of robbery committed, but would further conclude that all of the elements of first degree murder were present, you ... would be justified in returning a verdict of first degree murder, if you determine beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing was intentional; that is, that there was a specific conscious intent to kill and this was done willfully, deliberately, and with premeditation. Id. at 406. (alteration in original). 18 and Laird were also convicted of kidnaping, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and unlawful restraint. Given the court’s instruction on accomplice liability, the jury could easily have convicted Laird of first-degree murder based on his conspiring with Chester to kidnap or assault Milano even if jurors were not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Laird intended to kill him. The Commonwealth also points out that the trial court instructed the jury that a defendant could not be found guilty of first-degree murder unless the defendant was “at that time, capable of forming a specific intent to kill . . . .” App. at 261. However, that instruction was given in the context of a charge on the diminished capacity defense to first-degree murder. When that defense is implicated, voluntary intoxication can reduce first-degree murder to third-degree murder by raising a reasonable doubt about the perpetrator’s ability to form the specific intent to kill. See Whitney v. Horn, 280 F.3d 240, 254 (3d Cir. 2002) (citing Commonwealth v. Graves, 334 A.2d 661 (Pa. 1975)). Given that context, we can not conclude that such a brief reference to the required mens rea for first-degree murder remedies the incorrect and misleading portion of the instruction. “Language that merely contradicts and does not explain a constitutionally infirm instruction will not suffice to absolve the infirmity. [We have] no way of knowing which of the two irreconcilable instructions the jurors applied in reaching their verdict.” Francis v. Franklin, 471 U.S. 307, 322 (1985). Moreover, the problem here is exacerbated because, as noted above, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, while recognizing the problem with the instruction, did not attempt to 19 resolve it. Thus, inasmuch as Laird’s claim was not adjudicated on the merits by the state court, the district court correctly concluded that AEDPA’s deferential standard of review does not apply and that the instruction was erroneous. T h is does not, however, end our inquiry. We must still determine if the error was harmless as the Commonwealth claims and as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court suggested in Chester II.