People v. Johnson
Annotate this CaseA car sped into a campsite at Lake Mendocino and skidded to a stop. Four men got out of the car: Johnson, Thornton, Schnebly and Crocker. Within minutes, Litteral, who was staying at the campsite and who had offered Johnson’s wife shelter when she fled the relationship, was shot to death. Haggett, another visitor, was shot and seriously wounded. A fingerprint lifted from the shotgun later collected in evidence belonged to Crocker. It was undisputed that Johnson and Thornton, who were tried jointly, were not the shooters. The two were convicted of first degree murder and attempted murder, but were acquitted of attempted kidnapping. The court of appeal conditionally reversed the first degree murder convictions and remanded to permit the district attorney to retry the cases or to accept a reduction of the convictions to second degree murder. The trial court erred in instructing the jury that it did not have to unanimously agree on a theory of murder where one theory was first degree murder and the other was second degree murder; the error was prejudicial. The court also erred in instructing the jury that the defendants were accomplices as a matter of law, but that error was harmless.
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