Evidence Sufficient to Support Felony Murder; No Plain Error in Instructions

State v. Webster, Minn.S.Ct., 5/10/2017.  A jury convicted Mr. Webster of first degree felony murder for the killing of Eulalio Gonzalez-Sanchez. Here's how Mr. Webster said it happened:

On the morning of September 21, 2014, he and Blackwell had been smoking marijuana and were “money hungry.” They were “riding around [northeast Minneapolis] looking for a victim to rob” in Blackwell’s car when they spotted Gonzalez-Sanchez. Webster got out of the car with Blackwell’s gun in his pocket and approached Gonzalez-Sanchez with the intention of robbing him. He said he had brought the gun along as “back up” because GonzalezSanchez “was big.” Gonzalez-Sanchez saw Webster approaching and “act[ed] like . . . he was going to attack” him. When Webster pulled out the gun, Gonzalez-Sanchez surrendered, complying with Webster’s order to lie on the ground. Webster took GonzalezSanchez’s wallet from his back pocket and looked through it, but found nothing worth taking. He claimed that he did not see or steal Gonzalez-Sanchez’s cell phone.

Webster left the wallet on the ground and began walking away, scared and shaking. Gonzalez-Sanchez remained on the ground, and said something to Webster in Spanish. Webster said that this “really [made him] nervous.” Webster testified that he had walked about 5 feet away when suddenly, “something . . . forced [him] to stop” and “a demon jumped into [him]”—in other words, “something like a spirit came through [his] body.” Webster then turned and shot Gonzalez-Sanchez three times. He described the incident as “a robbery that went wrong.”

Mr. Webster said that the state had presented insufficient evidence to prove that the killing of Mr. Gonzalez-Sanchez occurred while he was attempting to commit an aggravated robbery.  Mr. Webster said that it had been the "spirit" that had come through him that caused the killing so he hadn't killed him "while" the robbery was going down.  Justice McKeig doesn't think too much of this theory. This is because, in part, after the killing Mr. Webster's homie, Mr. Blackwell, went back to check the body one last time for anything of value that could be taken, so technically, the robbery was still ongoing.

Mr. Webster also complained about the standard jury instructions for felony murder.  Because he did not object to the instructions the court reviews this under "plain error" analysis.  The court can't find that any error was "plain":  

Here, the district court instructed the jurors that the fourth element of the felony murder offense required that “at the time of causing the death of [Gonzalez-Sanchez], the defendant was engaged in the act of committing or attempting to commit the crime of aggravated robbery.” This instruction is consistent with the standard jury instruction set forth in the Criminal Jury Instruction Guide. 10 Minn. Dist. Judges Ass’n, Minnesota Practice—Jury Instruction Guides, Criminal, CRIMJIG 11.09 (6th ed. 2015). Moreover, the instruction does not contravene existing case law. We have never held that a district court is required to include language requiring a causal relationship between the felony and the killing in the jury instructions on first-degree felony murder. Thus, like the error alleged in [State v. ]Milton, 821 N.W.2d [789 (Minn. 2012) at 807, we conclude that the alleged error in this case was not plain.