Johnson v. State

Summary

The Court reversed Johnson’s convictions for second-degree assault and possession of a deadly weapon during commission of a felony and remanded for a new trial. It held that the supplemental instruction improperly suggested that Johnson’s failure to act could establish accomplice liability even though the State did not rely on a legal-duty-to-prevent theory, thereby undermining the jury’s ability to perform its duty. The Court did not decide whether the absence of a mere-presence instruction independently constituted plain error.