Opinion ID: 1454621
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: Accomplice Testimony Instructions

Text: The court instructed the jury as a matter of law that Avette Barrett and Allison Eckstrom were accomplices and that their testimony had to be corroborated. It defined an accomplice in accordance with CALJIC No. 3.10 as a person who has 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. (39) Defendant claims reversible error because the court did not further instruct the jury, as he requested, that an accomplice could also be a person who directly committed the crime. He maintains that without his proposed addition the instruction undermined his defense that Barrett and Eckstrom were the actual killers by constituting a forbidden conclusive presumption. There are two short answers to defendant's claims. First, we rejected similar claims in People v. Heishman (1988) 45 Cal.3d 147, 162-163 [246 Cal. Rptr. 673, 753 P.2d 629], in which we commented: The instruction could not reasonably be understood as precluding rejection of [the witness's] testimony  including rejection based on a conclusion that in fact [the witness] was the killer. Contrary to defendant's proferred distinctions, our holding there clearly rested on the language of the instruction as opposed to the specific facts and is not fairly distinguishable. Second, any error in declining defendant's proposed modification of the instruction was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in view of the overwhelming evidence of his perpetration of Van Zandt's murder. (See pt. XXIII, post. )