Court Opinion

ID: 9578194
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:42:42.362932+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:11.956431
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE SHEEHY,
dissenting:
I would reverse the conviction of Sherry Riley.
In my opinion the connection of Sherry Riley to the beating death of James Gill is far too attenuated to make her accountable with the principals in this case.
This is a bizarre case of guilt by association. She has been convicted as accountable, not because she acted to whip or beat James Gill, or stood by while he was being beaten, but because she adhered to a belief in the strong discipline of children as a religious tenet. Acting under that tenet, she had previously administrered some strong discipline herself, to James Gill and to others, but she never beat anyone to the point of death. It cannot be said under the evidence here that she “purposely or knowingly” acted to bring about the death of James Gill, or that she purposely promoted or facilitated the commission of deliberate homicide.
Additionally, I think that she is, at the least, entitled to a new trial, because instruction no. 16 is fatally flawed in permitting the jury to convict Sherry Riley for nonstatutory reasons. In effect, the Court and the jury made up their own crime of accountability.
A person is accountable under section 45-2-302(3), MCA, only when, “either before or during the commission of an offense with the purpose to promote or facilitate such commission/ the person aids or abets the principal actor in the planning or commission of the offense. The court correctly instructed the jury on this point in instruction no. 30.
Instruction no. 16 conflicts with instruction no. 30 because no. 16 adds additional but nonstatutory grounds upon which to convict of accountability. By breaking instruction no. 16 into some of its components, one can see language that had no place in an instruction to the jury:
“. . . The defendants did purposely or knowingly cause or *432aided or abetted in purposely or knowingly causing the death of James Gill by
“[1] . . . lending their support. . . countenance or approval to the continued or repeated mistreatment of James Gill;
“[2] . . . failing or refusing to intervene or oppose the mistreatment of James Gill;
“[3] . . . failing or refusing to secure medical or hygenic care for James Gill;
“[4] . . .in violation of sections 45-2-201(1), (a), and 45-2-302(3), MCA . .
The language contained in [1], [2], and [3], is not to be found in any statute defining a crime, either of accountability or deliberate homicide, in Montana. Yet, that bracketed language is, by the statement in [4], held out to the jury as being a violation of certain sections of the Montana Code. On that basis, the instruction is misleading, confusing and in conflict with the other instructions given by the Court which define the offense of accountability in statutory language.
It was, of course, improper in this case for the court to include the language of the Information in an instruction to the jury. We have approved in earlier cases the inclusion of the language from an Information in a jury instruction, particularly in State v. McKenzie (1980), Mont., 608 P.2d 428, 444, 37 St.Rep. 325, 339, where we said:
“Montana’s criminal code is written in clear plain language which serves well as the basis for instructions to the jury. There was no error in incorporating the entire Information into the preliminary instructions, for it too is basically in statutory language, merely inserting defendant’s name and the victim’s name in the proper places, and enumerating the weapons used . . .” (Emphasis added.)
It is one thing to incorporate the statutory language in an instruction from an Information, and quite another to include in an instruction nonstatutory language from an Information. For all we know, the jury convicted Sherry Riley of “failing or refusing to secure medical care” for James Gill *433or “failing or refusing to intervene or oppose in the mistreatment of James Gill,” for neither of which is there a statutory duty placed upon Sherry Riley. To that extent instruction no. 16 invents a crime not set out in our criminal code.
I therefore dissent.