## Facts

- Donald Stewart Kohler sought to obtain marijuana and said he wanted to “steal some marijuana,” asking acquaintances to locate a seller with multiple pounds.
- Through an intermediary, Kohler arranged to buy four pounds of marijuana from Warren Jerome Yates for $1,100 per pound.
- Kohler planned to use mostly counterfeit money, take the marijuana, and flee.
- After the exchange, Kohler ran; Yates chased him and fired a shot.
- The bullet killed Shirley Worcester, an uninvolved bystander.
- The State prosecuted Kohler for second-degree felony murder using Yates’s marijuana distribution as the predicate felony, asserting Kohler was liable as an aider and abettor of that distribution; it also charged Kohler with conspiracy to distribute marijuana.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to convict Kohler of second-degree felony murder by treating him, as the buyer, as an aider and abettor (second-degree principal) of the seller’s felony distribution of marijuana.
2. Whether the evidence was sufficient to convict Kohler of conspiracy to distribute marijuana where the proof showed a buyer–seller transaction and Kohler’s plan to steal the drugs.

## Decision

- The Court of Special Appeals of Maryland reversed Kohler’s convictions for second-degree felony murder and conspiracy to distribute marijuana.
- The court held the evidence was insufficient to prove Kohler distributed marijuana or aided and abetted Yates’s distribution based solely on his role as purchaser.
- Because the predicate felony was not proved as to Kohler, the felony-murder conviction could not stand.
- The conspiracy-to-distribute conviction also failed because the evidence did not establish an agreement to distribute, beyond an ordinary buyer–seller transaction and Kohler’s plan to steal the marijuana.
- Kohler’s conviction for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute was not challenged on appeal and remained intact.

## Legal Principles

- Second-degree felony murder requires proof that the defendant committed, or is legally accountable for, the predicate felony; if the predicate felony is not proved as to the defendant, felony-murder liability fails.
- Aiding-and-abetting liability requires assistance or encouragement to the principal with intent that the specific crime succeed; mere necessary participation in a transaction does not alone establish accomplice liability.
- In controlled-substance offenses, a buyer’s participation as purchaser does not, without additional evidence of shared intent to further the seller’s distribution offense, make the buyer a principal in distribution.
- Conspiracy requires proof of an agreement to accomplish an unlawful objective; a single buyer–seller arrangement, without additional evidence of a joint plan to distribute, is insufficient to prove conspiracy to distribute.

## Conclusion

The appellate court ruled that treating a drug purchaser as an aider and abettor of the seller’s distribution requires proof beyond mere purchase participation; without sufficient evidence tying the buyer to the predicate distribution felony or to an agreement to distribute, felony-murder and conspiracy-to-distribute convictions must be reversed.


Kohler v. State, 36 A.3d 1013 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 2012)