Court Opinion

ID: 9576099
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:20:51.677372+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:52:10.616748
License: Public Domain

COMPTON, J.,
dissenting
I do not agree with my colleagues. In my view, the evidence utterly fails to sustain the conviction.
As the majority points out, in a trial of an accessory before the fact one of the essential elements to be established is that the accused before commission of the crime was in some way concerned therein as a contriver, instigator or advisor. Inherent in this element is the requirement that the conduct of the alleged accessory have a causal connection to commission of the target crime. State v. Hunter, 290 N.C. 556, 578, 227 S.E.2d 535, 548 (1976). Otherwise, there would be no real contriving, instigating or advising. Id. While not explicitly articulating the causal factor, the majority implicitly acknowledges existence of the requirement by holding that “a jury could reasonably conclude that the defendant instigated the commission of her husband’s murder, that she had reason to know of Brogan’s criminal intention and intended to encourage his commission of the crime, and that her encouragement in fact induced Brogan to commit the crime.” In my opinion, there is absolutely no sufficient evidence to support those conclusions.
*429The perpetrators of the murders, testifying as witnesses for the Commonwealth, absolved defendant of any causal connection with the murder of her husband. Ricky Brogan, who did not know of any “relationship” between defendant and his brother, Terry, testified there was no discussion with the brother before they went to the site of the murders “that had anything whatsoever to do with” defendant. Terry Brogan testified without contradiction that defendant had no connection with his going to the scene of the murders stating,
I didn’t go up there to kill them. Not because she asked me to or anything like that.
In addition, the prosecutor introduced oral and written statements of defendant in which she denied any participation in the murders.
In a leading case on accomplice liability, United States v. Peoni, 100 F.2d 401 (2d Cir. 1938), Learned Hand, L, focused on the causal requirement. He wrote that to be guilty as an accessory it is necessary that a defendant “in some sort associate himself with the venture, that he participate in it as in something that he wishes to bring about, that he seek by his action to make it succeed.” 100 F.2d at 402, quoted with approval in Nye & Nissen v. United States, 336 U.S. 613, 619 (1949). In my view, the evidence fails to show defendant associated herself with the logging camp venture during which her husband was murdered. The record fails to demonstrate defendant participated in the venture so as to attribute to her an actual desire to bring about the killing of her spouse. And the evL dence does not establish defendant sought by her conduct to make the venture succeed. The record reveals a hunting excursion, which took place without defendant’s knowledge, at a site where Terry Brogan unexpectedly encountered’the victims, and which spontaneously erupted into a violent shooting spree. Karren McGhee’s statements and actions cannot be held to have risen to the level of “contriving,” “instigating” or “advising” these brutal acts because there is no evidence of a causal connection between her alleged “encouragement” and commission of the crime. At the most, the record shows defendant, during the course of an illicit relationship, made damaging statements to her paramour, many of which were uttered when, according to the proof, defendant and Brogan were just “fooling around.”
Consequently, I would reverse the conviction and dismiss the indictment.