Court Opinion

ID: 9669629
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:02:01.784935+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:58.795812
License: Public Domain

SABERS, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent.
Woods’ attorney should have requested accomplice instructions to attempt to insulate his client from the adverse testimony of Garcia — the only eye witness to the crime to testify at the trial. Defendant had everything to gain and nothing to lose. To fail to do so was a mistake. The majority opinion makes a somewhat plausible but strained argument to convince us that Garcia was not an accomplice, only an accessory. It seems to me that reasonable minds could differ, thereby making it a jury question. State v. Lingwall, 398 N.W.2d 745, 747 (S.D.1986); Grooms v. State, 320 N.W.2d 149, 151 (S.D.1982); State v. Johnson, 81 S.D. 600, 607, 139 N.W.2d 232, 236 (1965). This is especially so when all of the testimony on this question comes from Garcia himself. This is all the more reason to request an accomplice instruction so that Garcia’s testimony would be viewed with distrust and not, as the majority paints him, an innocent 14 year old boy deceived into coming along while under the influence of an older man.
In addition, since Woods was charged and convicted with first degree murder and because Garcia had already testified in the State’s case in chief, there seems to be very little reason for Woods not to testify in his own defense. Once again, he had something to gain and very little to lose.