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.