## Facts

- An undercover New Hampshire State Police detective arranged multiple crack-cocaine purchases from Bounleuth “Pheng” Sinbandith in Laconia in July 1996.
- On four occasions, the detective gave Sinbandith money and Sinbandith drove to another location, usually accompanied by either Elizabeth Begin or Velvet Weeks.
- After Sinbandith returned, Weeks delivered crack cocaine to the undercover officer on the completed transactions.
- On one occasion Sinbandith was unable to obtain cocaine and returned the money.
- A grand jury indicted Sinbandith for: three counts of sale of a controlled drug (crack cocaine), three counts of conspiracy to sell a controlled drug, and one count of attempted sale.
- The sale indictments alleged Sinbandith “did, in concert with and aided by another, knowingly sell or dispense” crack cocaine, and included captions and citations referencing the accomplice-liability statute.

## Issues

1. Whether the defendant’s right to a unanimous verdict was violated by jury instructions allowing conviction under either principal or accomplice liability without a specific unanimity instruction.
2. Whether the sale indictments were constitutionally insufficient for alleging “knowingly” (principal mens rea) while referencing accomplice liability, which requires acting “purposely” regarding another’s conduct.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of New Hampshire affirmed all convictions.
- The court held the jury-instruction/unanimity claim was waived because the defendant did not request a specific unanimity instruction or object to the instructions given.
- The court further held that, in the circumstances, the general unanimity instruction was sufficient and no reversible error was shown.
- The court held the sale indictments were constitutionally sufficient because they charged the substantive offense as a principal using the mens rea required by the drug-sale statute, and accomplice references did not require pleading a separate purposeful mens rea.

## Legal Principles

- A challenge to jury instructions is not preserved for appellate review absent a timely request for specific instructions or an objection to the instructions given.
- A general unanimity instruction typically satisfies the unanimity requirement unless there is a genuine risk of juror confusion or disagreement about the factual basis for conviction.
- An indictment is constitutionally adequate if it states the offense with sufficient definiteness to allow the defendant to prepare a defense and to plead the judgment as a bar to later prosecution for the same offense.
- Accomplice liability is a theory of responsibility for the substantive offense, not a separate offense requiring an indictment to plead every alternative theory or an additional mens rea when the substantive offense is properly charged.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Sinbandith’s drug-sale-related convictions, ruling that his unanimity challenge was waived and that the sale indictments provided adequate notice and properly charged principal liability even though they referenced accomplice liability.


State v. Sinbandith, 143 N.H. 579, 729 A.2d 994 (N.H. 1999)