Brooks v. State
Decision Date | 23 February 2012 |
Docket Number | Nos. 415,596,2010.,2008,s. 415 |
Citation | 40 A.3d 346 |
Court | Supreme Court of Delaware |
Parties | Ronald BROOKS, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.Rashan Owens, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. State of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee. |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Court Below: Superior Court of the State of Delaware in and for New Castle County, Cr. ID Nos. 0508014813, 0504003419.Upon appeal from the Superior Court. REVERSED in part, AFFIRMED in part and REMANDED.
Patrick J. Collins, Aaronson & Collins, LLC, Wilmington, Delaware for appellant Brooks.
Jennifer–Kate Aaronson, Aaronson, Collins & Jennings, LLC, Wilmington, Delaware for appellant Owens.
Timothy J. Donovan, Jr., Department of Justice, Wilmington, Delaware for appellee.
Before STEELE, Chief Justice, HOLLAND, BERGER, JACOBS and RIDGELY, Justices constituting the Court en Banc.
This Court consolidated two appeals concerning accomplice testimony to determine whether a trial judge must give a cautionary instruction on testimony offered by a witness who claims to have been the defendant's accomplice, even if the defense does not request it, and to determine the appropriate content of an accomplice instruction. We hold that a trial judge who fails to give an instruction about accomplice testimony commits plain error. We further hold that trial judges must give a modified version of the instruction from Bland v. State1 whenever the State offers accomplice testimony against the accused. Combined, these two holdings provide clear guidance to trial judges: give the modified Bland instruction or commit plain error.
After hearing oral argument on the cases of Rashan Owens and Ronald Brooks within a week of one another, this Court consolidated the cases for supplemental briefing addressing two questions:
(1) Should the Court adopt a bright line rule that it is plain error not to give a cautionary instruction on the testimony of an accomplice? See, e.g., United States v. Hill, 627 F.2d 1052 (10th Cir.1980); United States v. Shriver, 838 F.2d 980 (8th Cir.1988).
(2) This Court's suggestion for an accomplice credibility instruction in Bland v. State, 263 A.2d 286 (Del.1970), is over forty-one years old. Please suggest updates to that instruction so that all issues relating to accomplice testimony are addressed in a single instruction.2
This opinion answers those questions and resolves both appeals.
Trial judges must give a modified version of the instruction recommended in Bland v. State3 whenever a self-identified accomplice testifies. This broad rule simplifies a trial judge's task. Judges need not consider any problems associated with determining whether independent evidence corroborates the witness' testimony. This rule also frees judges from deciding whether to give an instruction about accomplice testimony in the absence of a request from defense counsel. Further, trial judges no longer need consider the appropriate content of an instruction about accomplice testimony.
Making this version of the Bland instruction mandatory not only simplifies an unnecessarily complicated area of the law, but also eliminates the potential for litigation gamesmanship. If it is unclear whether the trial judge should offer to give an instruction on accomplice testimony in the absence of a request for an accomplice instruction, then a defense attorney could avoid asking, knowing that if the defendant loses the trial he will have at least an arguable issue concerning ineffective assistance of counsel on appeal.
Although today we make a modified version of Bland mandatory for judges whenever a witness who claims to be an accomplice offers testimony, the law has not always been so simple. In the years after Bland, multiple cases tested this Court's loyalty to the precise verbal formulation described in Bland. Specifically, in Cabrera v. State4 and then in Bordley v. State, 5 this Court denied direct appeals in which the defendants complained that trial judge departed from the language in Bland. In both cases, the Court rejected challenges to the instructions finding accomplice testimony instructions acceptable so long as they are accurate and adequately explain the potential problems with accomplice testimony.6 In Soliman v. State, 7 this Court reaffirmed its insistence that judges need not give the instruction from Bland, so long as they provide an accurate summary of the law. The Court therefore denied an appeal contending that the trial judge committed plain error by giving an instruction each side conceded was accurate.
More recently, this Court held in Smith v. State8 that a lawyer who fails to request any instruction on accomplice liability deprives the accused of the effective assistance of counsel. In Smith, we acknowledged that this Court had, in the past, given “considerable latitude in formulating the language of an accomplice testimony instruction....” 9 But Smith seemed to indicate a departure from our historical ambivalence about whether trial judges should follow the precise wording of Bland: “[A]lthough in Bordley we held that the pattern jury instruction on accomplice credibility was a correct statement of the law, we now hold that the best practice is to give the Bland instruction on accomplice liability rather than the pattern jury instruction given in Bordley.” 10
Our ruling in Hoskins v. State11 diminished much of the force of Smith. In Hoskins, this Court rejected the proposition that a trial judge commits plain error by failing to give any accomplice testimony instruction when he is not asked to give one.12 As a result, the law today seems unnecessarily complex. Smith strongly suggests that defendants are deprived of the effective assistance of counsel if counsel fails to request the Bland instruction on accomplice testimony. Hoskins suggests that a judge does not commit plain error by failing to give the Bland instruction, but openly invites a later motion about ineffective assistance of counsel premised on this same issue. Today we resolve this unnecessarily convoluted area of the law. We overrule all those cases that permit deviations from Bland, and replace this legal thicket with a clear path for trial judges to follow.
Any time a witness who claims to be an accomplice testifies, judges must give the following instruction:
A portion of the evidence presented by the State is the testimony of admitted participants in the crime with which these defendants are charged. For obvious reasons, the testimony of an alleged accomplice should be examined by you with more care and caution than the testimony of a witness who did not participate in the crime charged. This rule becomes particularly important when there is nothing in the evidence, direct or circumstantial, to corroborate the alleged accomplices' accusation that these defendants participated in the crime. Without such corroboration, you should not find the defendants guilty unless, after careful examination of the alleged accomplices' testimony, you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that it is true and you may safely rely upon it. Of course, if you are so satisfied, you would be justified in relying upon it, despite the lack of corroboration, and in finding the defendants guilty.13
A witness qualifies as an accomplice if he or she fits the definition of one, 14 whether charged as an accomplice or not. This rule applies even if the supposed accomplice pleads guilty to the maximum possible term.
With this new rule in place, we turn to the cases of Rashan Owens and Ronald Brooks.
The State charged Owens with multiple crimes relating to two robberies, both of the same Sun National Bank branch in Newark, Delaware.15 The first robbery occurred on February 28, 2005, the second exactly one month later, on March 28, 2005. The State also charged Quinn Martin with the same offenses for his role in acting with Owens to accomplish the bank robberies. Martin pleaded guilty to some of the crimes with which the State had charged him, and he promised to testify truthfully against Owens. In exchange, the State agreed to drop the other charges.
At trial, Martin testified that he planned the first robbery with Owens, but after the two disagreed about when to accomplish the act, Owens robbed the bank without informing Martin ahead of time. No evidence corroborated Martin's account. Apparently not convinced by this testimony, the jury found Owens not guilty of the first robbery.
Concerning the March 28 robbery, Martin testified that he planned and accomplished it with Owens. A week after the robbery, police arrested Martin and Owens, and discovered that the two possessed the money taken by the perpetrators of the March 28 robbery. A third person testified that the two men told him they had committed the robbery and successfully solicited his help exchanging the money, stained by a dye pack soon after the robbery, for clean bills.
Owens' attorney did not request that the judge give the Bland instruction. Nevertheless, the trial judge gave the jury the following instruction, based not on Bland but on a model instruction,16 concerning testimony offered by an alleged accomplice:
The testimony of an alleged accomplice, someone who said that he participated with another person in the commission of a crime, has been presented in this case. Quinn Martin is alleged to have been an accomplice in this case. The fact that an alleged accomplice has entered a plea of guilty to certain of the offenses charged does not mean that any other person is guilty of the offenses charged. As stated elsewhere in these instructions, you are the sole judges of the credibility of each witness and of the weight to be given to the testimony of each.
You may consider all the factors which might affect the witness's credibility, including whether the testimony of an accomplice has been affected by...
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