Brooks v. State; Owens v. State
Annotate this CaseThe court consolidated appeals concerning accomplice testimony to determine whether a trial judge must give a cautionary instruction on testimony offered by a witness who claimed to have been defendant's accomplice, even if the defense did not request it, and to determine the appropriate content of an accomplice instruction. The court held that a trial judge who failed to give an instruction about accomplice testimony committed plain error. The court also held that trial judges must give a modified version of the instruction from Bland v. State whenever the State offered accomplice testimony against the accused. Combined, these two holdings provided clear guidance to trial judges: give the modified Bland instruction or commit plain error.
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