Failure to Give Accomplice Liability Instruction Results in New Trial in Arson Prosecution

State v. Williams, Mn.Ct.App. 1/20/2009).

A jury convicted Mr. Williams of first degree arson of the house in which he lived.  Shortly before the fire, Mr. Williams persuaded a gas station attendant to give him a container full of gas in exchange for Mr. William's driver's license as collateral for future payment of the gas.  Police eventually found an empty gas can in the trunk of Mr. Williams' car.  The police also discovered that Mr. Williams' 14 year old step son was at the house shortly before the fire started and that he had gasoline on his clothes shortly after the fire.

The state did not initially charge Mr. Williams with aiding and abetting arson.  At trial, Mr. Williams testified; he acknowledged leaving his license as collateral for the gas but denied setting the fire.  Rather, he said that he was driving to the Twin Cities when he learned of the fire.  At the close of evidence, the state then asked the court to instruct the jury that Mr. Williams could be convicted if he or another for whose act he was liable caused the fire.  This language is apparently optional language in the JIGS arson instruction so the trial court agreed to give it.  The defense did not ask for a separate accomplice liability instruction, CRIMJIG 4.01. 

The trial court committed plain error by not giving this accomplice liability instruction.  The error also affected Mr. Williams' substantial rights:

Plain error is prejudicial if there is a “reasonable likelihood that the giving of the instruction in question would have had a significant effect on the verdict of the jury.  State v. Griller, 583 N.W.2d 736, 740 (Minn. 1998).

The main reason that this is so is because of the father and step-son relationship; the jury could have incorrectly based its decision on that relationship instead of on accomplice liability.  Mr. Williams gets a new trial.

The Gang's All Here, But They May Not Be Accomplices to Murder

State v. Pendleton, Mn.S.Ct. (1/29/2009).

The state charged Mr. Jeffery Pendleton with two counts of first degree murder for the stabbing death of Robert Berry, Jr. Mr. Pendleton got into a fight with Mr. Berry, in which various others either participated or egged on the participants.  The fight left Mr. Berry laying unconscious on the floor.  After a brief interlude, during which there was discussion among Mr. Pendleton and some of his associates about killing Mr. Berry, Mr. Pendleton and a few of his close associates bundled Mr. Berry into a blanket, drove him to the river bank where the state alleged that at least Mr. Pendleton stabbed him to death.   The jury convicted him of murder one.

On appeal, Mr. Pendleton argued that the trial court should have given an accomplice instruction that specifically stated that one of his close associates, A.C., was an accomplice as a matter of law.  The trial court gave only a general accomplice instruction, leaving it to the jury to decide who was or was not an accomplice.  Here's what the court had to say about A.C.'s role in these events:

A.C. was initially charged with the same crime as appellant,remained with the group the entire night, opened the house door while the group carried Berry to the car, initially lied to the police about the events of the night, and fled after the killing. But, there was no testimony that A.C. contributed to the conversation about killing Berry. Additionally, A.C. stayed near the car when the others stabbed Berry.

While the Opinion is a bit vague on this point, the implication is that the truck was not so far from where the stabbing was taking place.  Elsewhere in the Opinion, while discussing the sufficiency of the evidence, the Court threw out this dicta about Pendleton's liability for aiding and abetting an offense:

[E]ven if there was insufficient evidence to prove appellant’s direct involvement, he would also be guilty under a theory of aiding and abetting if he was intentionally present at the scene of the crime, knew his accomplices were going to commit a crime, and intended his presence to further that crime. State v. Mahkuk, 736 N.W.2d 675, 681 (Minn. 2007).

This would seem to fit A.C.'s behavior, which would make her an accomplice; nonetheless, the Court concluded that there was no error in not fingering A.C. as an accomplice: 

A district court judge is only required to name specific accomplices in the jury instructions if the facts are “undisputed or compel but a single inference.” State v. Robledo-Kinney, 615 N.W.2d 25, 33 (Minn. 2000).

The state called another associate, Morris Pendleton (not to be confused with Jeffery), to testify that he saw Jeffery Pendleton stab Mr. Berry more than once.  Morris has already been convicted, himself, of first degree murder; at his trial, Morris claimed to have seen the stabbing from a distance, atop the river embankment.  At his trial, the state introduced DNA evidence that put Morris a tad closer to the action, on the riverbank where the stabbing occurred; the state didn't bring any of this up during Jeffery's trial; the defense did.  On appeal, Jeffery complained that the state had suborned perjury with Morris's testimony.  The Court concluded that it had not because the state only questioned Morris about facts that the state believed to be credible.

The Court dispensed rather quickly with the remaining arguments of the sufficiency of the evidence and claims of prosecutorial misconduct.

More Dog Sniffing

State v. Baumann, Minn.Ct.App., 1/13/2008.

Over the Christmas Holiday, an apartment manager complained to the local police that a high number of people were coming in and out of a particular apartment, staying for a short amount of time, then leaving.  Police identified the occupant of this apartment, but the occupant had no prior drug arrests or convictions.  The police brought over the drug sniffing dog and let the dog sniff the common hallway.  The majority opinion says that the dog alerted on Mr. Baumann's apartment, while the concurring opinion says that the dog alerted on several apartments, including Baumann's.  On the basis of the alert, a judge issued a search warrant for the apartment which produce a quantity of marijuana.

Mr. Baumann argued that the police lacked a reasonable, articulable suspicion of criminal activity to have brought in the dog.  The dog's alert should have been, therefore, excluded from consideration by the judge who issued the search warrant.  Neither the apartment manager nor the police officer provided even an estimate of the number of persons coming and going from the apartment.  Neither provided even an estimate of the amount of time that each considered to be a "short time."  The manager's complaints were not based on behaviors that she actually observed. 

Not to worry.  The officer could reasonably draw the suspicion of drug activity, a suspicion that was "something more" than an unarticulated hunch.  The court relies upon State v. Davis, 732 N.W.2d 173, 176 (Minn. 2007).  In that case, the apartment manager had a report from a maintenance worker that there were grow lights in Davis's apartment, and that Davis would not allow maintenance workers into the apartment to investigate a water leak.  Just why Davis is "on all fours with these facts isn't really explained.  The concurrence does acknowledge that whether police were acting on an unarticulated hunch "is very close:"

Hopefully, our decision will not be seen by police as yet a further expansion of dog-sniff searches over constitutionally protected privacy expectations.

Woof.

The Sheriff Will Leave the Lights On ... And Send You the Bill

 Jones v. Borchardt, Mn.Ct.App., (1/6/2009).

The Minnesota Court of Appeals has solved (part of) the budget shortfall.  The Olmsted County Attorney charged Mr. Jones with three counts of aggravated robbery.  The district court set bail at $100,000.00.  Eight months later, Mr. Jones, still in jail, pled guilty to all three counts.  The Court sentenced him to a seventy-eight (78) month executed term.  Seven days later, the Department of Corrections fetched Mr. Jones from the jail to commence serving his sentence.  The Sheriff sent Mr. Jones a room and board bill for his entire stay, to the tune of $7,150.00.

It seems that Minnesota has a statute that authorizes this, M.S. 641.12,S. 3(a):

A county board may require that an offender convicted of a crime and confined in the county jail, workhouse, or correctional or work farm pay the cost of the offender’s room, board, clothing, medical, dental, and other correctional services.

Mr. Jones thought that this was piling on.  He said that he would pay for the seven days between sentencing and transfer to DOC, but all of that pretrial time the county should eat.  That's because it was only on the day of sentencing that Mr. Jones had both been "convicted of a crime" and "confined in the county jail ..."  The Court of Appeals rejects this interpretation in favor of a more fiscally aggressive approach.  The Sheriff can impose the room and board fee so long as its renters don't get themselves acquitted.  If there's no conviction, there's no payday.

So, how does the Sheriff collect its rent?  Most any way it likes.  It can, apparently, grab canteen money that girlfriend or Mom leaves at the jail.  (The Sheriff can't grab DOC canteen moneys, but DOC does a nice enough job of that on its own.)  Once the renter checks out, the Sheriff can bring a small claims action.  There is no statute of limitations stated in this statute, but, I suppose, more general limitations statutes would apply.