Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-12361 No. 6708
09-19-2018
BENJAMIN E. WILSON, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appearances: Marjorie A. Mock, under contract with the Public Defender Agency, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Donald Soderstrom, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Jahna Lindemuth, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
NOTICE Memorandum decisions of this Court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d) and Paragraph 7 of the Guidelines for Publication of Court of Appeals Decisions (Court of Appeals Order No. 3). Accordingly, this memorandum decision may not be cited as binding authority for any proposition of law. Trial Court No. 3PA-14-3362 CR
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Palmer, Eric Smith, Judge. Appearances: Marjorie A. Mock, under contract with the Public Defender Agency, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Donald Soderstrom, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Jahna Lindemuth, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee. Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, Allard, Judge, and Suddock, Superior Court Judge. Judge MANNHEIMER.
Sitting by assignment made pursuant to Article IV, Section 16 of the Alaska Constitution and Administrative Rule 24(d).
Benjamin E. Wilson appeals his conviction for coercion — i.e., compelling another person to engage in conduct by threatening the other person that, if they do not do what the defendant requests, the defendant will inflict injury on them or on another person. AS 11.41.530(a). The State charged Wilson with coercing his former romantic partner, Leticia Faller, to meet him at a local convenience store, by making her fearful that she or her current boyfriend, or one of her family members, would be hurt if she did not come to meet Wilson at the store.
On appeal, Wilson argues that the evidence presented at his trial was legally insufficient to support the jury's verdict. Wilson also argues that the jury instruction on the elements of the crime of coercion was flawed because it did not explicitly identify the culpable mental states required for this offense.
For the reasons explained in this opinion, we reject both of Wilson's claims and we affirm his conviction.
Wilson's claim that the evidence presented at his trial was legally insufficient to support the verdict
The State charged Wilson with the crime of coercion, AS 11.41.530(a), based on a series of threatening communications that Wilson had with his former romantic partner, Leticia Faller. Wilson's design, according to the State, was to scare Faller into meeting him at a local convenience store, by making her fearful that she or her current boyfriend, or one of her family members, would be hurt if she did not come to meet Wilson.
Wilson argues that the evidence presented at his trial was legally insufficient to support the conclusion that Wilson threatened to inflict harm on Faller or any third person if Faller did not come to meet him at the convenience store.
Wilson's arguments hinge on viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to himself. But when an appellate court evaluates the sufficiency of the evidence to support a guilty verdict in a criminal trial, we must view the evidence (and the inferences that could reasonably be drawn from that evidence) in the light most favorable to upholding the jury's verdict.
See, e.g., Dorman v. State, 622 P.2d 448, 453 (Alaska 1981); Spencer v. State, 164 P.3d 649, 653 (Alaska App. 2007).
Viewing the evidence at Wilson's trial in that light, we conclude that the evidence was sufficient to convince reasonable jurors that the State had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Wilson threatened Faller with harm to herself or a family member if she did not do as he demanded. The evidence was therefore legally sufficient.
Dorman, 622 P.2d at 453; Spencer, 164 P.3d at 653.
Wilson's challenge to the jury instruction on the elements of the crime of coercion
Wilson asserts that the jury instruction on the elements of the crime of coercion was flawed because it failed to explicitly identify the culpable mental states needed for this crime.
The challenged jury instruction read (in pertinent part):
To prove that the defendant committed [the] crime [of coercion], the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt each of the following elements:
(1) the defendant demanded that Leticia Faller engage in conduct from which [she] had a legal right to abstain;
(2) the defendant compelled [Faller] to engage in conduct from which [she] had a legal right to abstain; and
(3) the defendant did so by means of instilling in [Faller] a fear that, if the demand was not complied with, the defendant or another might inflict physical injury on anyone or commit any other crime.
Wilson points out that this instruction does not use the terms "knowingly" or "recklessly" — two of the culpable mental states defined in AS 11.81.900(a).
In the trial court, Wilson's attorney did not object to this instruction. In fact, this is almost exactly the wording of the Alaska pattern jury instruction on the elements of coercion. However, on appeal, Wilson argues that the omission of the words "knowingly" and "recklessly" constitutes a fatal flaw in the jury instruction.
See Alaska Criminal Pattern Jury Instruction 11.41.530(a).
In particular, Wilson contends that the jury instruction should have explicitly required the jurors to decide (1) whether Wilson "knowingly" demanded that Faller engage in conduct (i.e., meet him at the convenience store), (2) whether Wilson "knowingly" compelled Faller to comply with his demand by threatening to inflict harm on Faller and/or some other person if she did not comply, and (3) whether Wilson acted "recklessly" with respect to whether his threats of harm could reasonably be expected to make Faller fearful enough that she would do as he demanded (i.e., meet him at the convenience store).
Relyingon our supreme court's recent decision in Jordan v. State, 420 P.3d 1143 (Alaska 2018), Wilson argues that the omission of these culpable mental states is not only plain error, but also a structural error that requires automatic reversal of his conviction. But for the reasons we are about to explain, we conclude that Wilson's case is distinguishable from Jordan.
The defendant in Jordan was charged with possessing four ounces or more of marijuana in his home. At trial, Jordan's defense was that he reasonably believed that his marijuana weighed less than four ounces. The trial judge erroneously concluded that this was not a valid defense to the charge. Accordingly, the judge refused to instruct the jury on this defense, and the judge would not let Jordan testify about why he believed that his marijuana weighed less than four ounces.
Jordan, 420 P.3d at 1145-46.
Id. at 1146-47.
Thus, as our supreme court put it, "the jury was not informed that [Jordan's] reasonableness was an issue", and "the jury had no opportunity to decide ... whether [Jordan's] defense was a reasonable one". In these circumstances, the supreme court held, the trial judge's refusal to instruct the jurors on this contested element of the offense was a structural error — i.e., an error that automatically required reversal of Jordan's conviction.
Id. at 1156.
Id. at 1155-56. --------
We do not read Jordan as requiring automatic reversal of a criminal conviction whenever there is some flaw in the jury instruction on the elements of the crime. And Wilson's case does not present the kind of error that was found in Jordan.
Wilson's trial judge did not refuse to instruct the jury on any of the elements of the crime of coercion, nor did the judge refuse to instruct the jury on any proposed defense to that crime. While it may be true that the jury instruction in Wilson's case could have been worded more precisely with respect to the culpable mental states that apply to the crime of coercion, the challenged jury instruction did not prevent Wilson's attorney from raising or arguing any defenses that he wished to, nor did it prevent the jurors from considering Wilson's defenses to the charge.
As we have already noted, Wilson argues that the instruction failed to inform the jurors that the State was required to prove that Wilson "knowingly" demanded that Faller engage in conduct (i.e., meet him at the convenience store). But the concept of knowing or deliberate action is inherent in the word "demand".
Wilson also argues that the instruction failed to inform the jurors that the State was required to prove that Wilson "knowingly" compelled Faller to comply with his demand through threats to inflict harm on Faller and/or some other person if she did not comply.
There may be situations where a person says things which are not meant as threats of harm, but which are perceived as threats by the hearer. But that was not the situation in Wilson's case, and that is not how Wilson's attorney argued this case.
Wilson offered little in the way of a defense to the charge that he used threats of physical harm in order to coerce Faller to meet him at the convenience store. Wilson did not testify at trial, but in his statement to the police following his arrest, Wilson openly admitted that he was "trying to scare [Faller]" — that his various statements to her were a "scare tactic" to get her to come meet him.
Rather than contesting the allegation that he made threats to Faller, Wilson acknowledged that he had done so — but he told the police that his motive for threatening Faller was a good one. According to Wilson, he deliberately threatened Faller because he hoped to convince Faller to stop using methamphetamine — to "scare her straight [and] sober".
During the defense summation to the jury, Wilson's attorney did not contest that Wilson had threatened Faller, nor did he contest that Faller had been in fear. Instead, the defense attorney suggested that Faller's fear had not been caused by Wilson's threats.
More specifically, Wilson's attorney argued that even though Faller may have been fearful when she agreed to meet Wilson at the convenience store, Faller's fear was not the result of what Wilson said or did to her. The defense attorney argued that Faller was suffering from paranoia as a result of "six days of constant meth abuse." The defense attorney pointed out that Faller's boyfriend had "said that she'd been on a six-day meth binge ... [and that] she became paranoid on meth."
Wilson's attorney told the jury that Wilson "took advantage of [Faller's] paranoia", but the defense attorney argued that "[this] paranoia was not because of something that [Wilson] did."
Given this record, the challenged jury instruction did not prevent Wilson's attorney from pursuing his chosen defense to the charge, nor did it prevent the jury from considering that defense.
Finally, Wilson argues that the instruction failed to inform the jurors that the State was required to prove that Wilson acted "recklessly" with respect to whether his threats of harm could reasonably be expected to make Faller fearful enough that she would do as he demanded (i.e., meet him at the convenience store).
Under the version of events that Wilson told to the police, this issue is moot. Wilson told the police that his conscious intent was to scare Faller to the point where she would agree to meet him. And under Alaska law, "if acting recklessly suffices to establish an element [of an offense], that element is established if a person acts intentionally[.]" AS 11.81.610(c).
Moreover, as we have already explained, Wilson's attorney offered a defense that did not hinge on lack of mens rea, but rather on lack of causation. In his summation to the jury, the defense attorney argued that even though Wilson made threats to Faller, and even though Wilson intended to use Faller's fear as a means of getting her to agree to meet him at the convenience store, Faller's fear was not actually the result of Wilson's actions, but rather the result of drug-induced paranoia.
Again, the challenged jury instruction did not prevent Wilson's attorney from pursuing his chosen defense, nor did it prevent the jury from considering that defense.
For all these reasons, we conclude that the flaw in the jury instruction in Wilson's case does not rise to the level of plain error.
Conclusion
The judgement of the superior court is AFFIRMED.