Strain v. State

2012 Ark. 184, 423 S.W.3d 1, 2012 Ark. LEXIS 197
Supreme Court of Arkansas·Decided April 26, 2012·No. No. CR 10-888·Published·Cited by 14 cases

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

|,Petitioner Rickey C. Strain, Jr., was convicted by a Jefferson County jury of first-degree murder and was sentenced to 300 months’ incarceration in the Arkansas Department of Correction. The Arkansas Court of Appeals affirmed. Strain v. State, 2009 Ark. App. 99, 2009 WL 398117 (unpublished). Appellant subsequently filed in the trial court a timely petition for postconviction relief pursuant to Arkansas Rule of Criminal Procedure 37.1 (2009), in which he argued, inter alia, that trial counsel had been ineffective for failing to seek the appropriate jury instructions regarding accomplice liability. That petition was denied following an evidentiary hearing, and this court affirmed. Strain v. State, 2012 Ark. 42, 394 S.W.3d 294 (per curiam).

Now before us is petitioner’s petition for rehearing pursuant to Arkansas Supreme Court Rule 2-3(g) (2012), asserting specific errors of law or fact that our opinion is thought to contain. Specifically, petitioner argues that this court “misconstrued his arguments” with regard to the three accomplice-related instructions that he claims should have been given by the trial court and that this court’s statement regarding petitioner’s failure to obtain a ruling on an issue was an incorrect statement of law. Because we find that the opinion contains no such errors, the ^petition for rehearing is denied.

Petitioner’s first allegation of error by this court concerns the “mere presence” instruction, and he argues that this court incorrectly determined that petitioner had presented no evidence that he was merely present at the crime scene. According to petition, this holding overlooked two important facts: petitioner did not have the burden of proof, even on the mere-presence issue; the “whole thrust” of petitioner’s cross-examination of witnesses, as summarized in a hypothetical motion for directed verdict, was that he was merely present. Petitioner misconstrues our holding on this issue, however.

In our opinion affirming the circuit court’s denial of postconviction relief, we noted that we have repeatedly held that it is implicit in the accomplice-liability instruction — which states that a party must solicit, advise, encourage, coerce, aid, agree to aid, or attempt to aid the principal to commit the crime — that mere presence or acquiescence at the crime scene is not enough. See Strain, 2012 Ark. 42, 394 S.W.3d 294 (citing Henderson v. State, 349 Ark. 701, 80 S.W.3d 374 (2002)); see also Jones v. State, 336 Ark. 191, 984 S.W.2d 432 (1999). Additionally, we explained that the failure to give the “mere presence” instruction, even when it was properly requested, cannot be reversible error where, as here, AMI Crim.2d 401 was given. See Strain, 2012 Ark. 42, 394 S.W.3d 294. Furthermore, while recognizing that we have held that the instruction is not necessary in cases where a defendant proffers no evidence that he was merely present, we stated:

Even assuming arguendo that the “mere presence” instruction might have been warranted in the instant case, it follows logically from our holding in Henderson that trial counsel cannot be ineffective for failing to request an instruction that is “implicitly include[d]” in instructions that were given.

Id. (citing Henderson, 349 Ark. 701, 80 S.W.3d 374). Thus, it is clear that our holding on this Upoint was not based on petitioner’s failure to introduce evidence that he was merely present at the scene, but, rather, on the fact that the failure to request the instruction could not be reversible error sufficient to establish prejudice in an ineffective-assistance claim if the instruction was implicitly included in an instruction that was given. Accordingly, we do not find that our decision on this point contained any error of fact or law.

The second error alleged by petitioner regards our ruling on his argument that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to request an instruction based on Arkansas Code Annotated section 5-2-403(b) (Repl.2006), which would have altered AMI Crim.2d 401 to require that the jury determine whether petitioner was acting with the requisite mental state for a murder conviction in order to hold him liable as an accomplice to that murder. According to petitioner, our holding was based on Arkansas Code Annotated section 5-2-403(a), which does not apply in cases where causing a particular result is an element of the crime. Rather, argues petitioner, our analysis should have centered on section 5-2-403(b), which limits accomplice liability for a crime to a defendant who, with respect to a particular result, is acting with the kind of culpable mental state sufficient for the commission of the underlying offense. Here again, petitioner misstates our holding.

In our opinion, we held that the jury was instructed as to the mental state required for each of the degrees of homicide, that the jury considered the evidence presented at trial, and that they found that petitioner had the requisite mental state for a first-degree-murder conviction. Strain, 2012 Ark. 42, 394 S.W.3d 294. As applicable to petitioner’s case, to obtain a conviction for first-degree murder, the State must establish beyond a reasonable doubt that, “with purpose of causing the Rdeath of another person, the person causes the death of another person.” Ark.Code Ann. § 5-10-102. Therefore, as we explained, petitioner’s conviction meant that the jury had found that petitioner had the requisite mental state for first-degree murder. See Strain, 2012 Ark. 42, 394 S.W.3d 294. We also held that petitioner failed to demonstrate prejudice as required for an ineffective-assistance claim in that he failed to explain how, had counsel requested a modification to AMI Crim.2d 401 based on Arkansas Code Annotated section 5-2-403(b), the result of the proceeding — a conviction for first-degree murder — would have been different. Id.; see Simmons v. State, 2012 Ark. 58, 2012 WL 401608 (per curiam) (holding that a petitioner who alleges ineffective assistance of counsel must demonstrate prejudice by showing how the fact-finder’s decision would have been different absent counsel’s errors). Therefore, both because our decision was based on the applicability of Arkansas Code Annotated section 5-2-403(b) and because petitioner’s failure to demonstrate prejudice was fatal to his ineffective-assistance claim on this point, petitioner’s allegation of error is without merit.

Petitioner’s final allegation of error by this court concerns an instruction based on Arkansas Code Annotated section 5-4-406, and he argues that he was entitled as a matter of law to an instruction that he was only criminally liable for the degree of the offense that was consistent with his culpable mental state or his accountability for an aggravating fact or circumstance. Further he argues that our holding in Jones, 336 Ark. 191, 984 S.W.2d 432, requires this instruction in cases where two or more defendants are charged and tried together if the degree of each defendant’s culpability may differ. On this, petitioner is mistaken.

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Strain v. State, 2012 Ark. 184, 423 S.W.3d 1, 2012 Ark. LEXIS 197 (Ark. 2012).

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