Kohler v. State

JAMES P. SALMON (Retired, Specially Assigned), J.

After using mostly fake money to purchase marijuana, Donald Kohler immediately fled from the seller, Warren Jerome Yates. Upon discovering the deception, Yates ran after Kohler and fired a shot that killed Shirley Worcester, an innocent bystander. Based on the State’s theory that Kohler aided and abetted Yates’s felony distribution of marijuana, a jury in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County convicted Kohler of second-degree felony murder and conspiracy to distribute marijuana.1 He was also convicted of possession of marijuana with intent to…