Court Opinion

ID: 9570014
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:19:19.691076+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:04:36.963574
License: Public Domain

BRYNER, Chief Judge,
concurring.
I join in the court’s decision construing AS 11.16.110(2) to mean that Echols could be convicted as an accomplice only if she intended to inflict serious physical injury on T.E. I wish to emphasize, however, that Echols could properly have been charged with first-degree assault as a principal rather than as an accomplice. See 2 W. LaFave and A. Scott, Substantive Criminal Law § 6.7(e) at 151-52 (1986).
Had the state charged Echols as a principal, proof of specific intent would not have been necessary. Echols would have been subject to conviction if the jury found that she recklessly caused serious physical injury to T.E. by means of a dangerous instrument. AS 11.41.200(a)(1). In context, this would have required the state to prove (1) that T.E.’s injuries were caused by Echols — that is, that Echols’ request to her husband to discipline T.E. was a substantial factor in bringing about the child’s injuries,1 and (2) that, in making the request, Echols acted recklessly — in other words, that, in requesting her husband to discipline T.E., Echols consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk that her husband would inflict serious physical injuries on T.E. by means of a dangerous instrument. See AS 11.81.900(a)(3).
The common law distinction between principals and accessories has, of course, been discarded for most purposes. See Rice v. State, 589 P.2d 419 (Alaska 1979); Tarnef v. State, 512 P.2d 923, 928 (Alaska 1973). Accordingly, it would normally be unnecessary for the state to specify whether Echols was charged as a principal or as an accomplice. In the present case, however, the state relied exclusively on the accomplice liability theory at trial, and that was the only theory addressed in the trial court’s instructions.2 Under these circumstances, the trial court’s failure to give appropriate instructions on the culpable mental state for accomplice liability was not harmless error, even though it is conceivable that Echols might have been convicted as a principal without proof that she intended T.E. to be seriously injured.

. See State v. Malone, - P.2d -, Op. No. 1155 (Alaska App., September 6, 1991).

. Moreover, the state apparently relied exclusively on the accomplice liability theory in securing Echols’ indictment. To convict Echols as a principal would thus have posed serious problems with variance. See Michael v. State, 805 P.2d 371 (Alaska 1991).