CL Accomplice Liability

Question 1

What is complicity

Answer 1

-not a crime, just gives ability to hold aiders and abetters liable for the crime itself

Question 2

CL Complicity

Answer 2

Guilty Parties divided into principals and accessories
Principals:
First Degree Principal = Perpetrator (Actually commits or uses an innocent agent)
Second Degree Principal = Abettor (Aided, counseled, abetted, commanded, encouraged)

Accessories: (1) Could not be tried before the principal without consent; (2) Could not be convicted of a higher crime than the principal; (3) Acquittal of the principal bars the accessory’s conviction.
Before the Fact: Inciter: Aided, counseled, commanded, or encouraged the commission, but was not present actually or constructively at the moment of perpetration.
After the Fact: Protector: With knowledge of the other’s guilt, renders assistance to a felon to hinder detection, arrest, trial, or punishment.

-most states abolished principles and accessories

Question 3

Accessory before the fact

Answer 3

in the old C/L regime may be tried & punish without regard to the status of the principal’s prosecution

Question 4

Accessory after the fact

Answer 4

typically prosecuted for separate offenses, rather than being treated as a party to the principal’s crime

Question 5

Complicity Actus Reus

Answer 5

Accomplice: Person who, with the required mens rea, assists the primary party in committing an offense.
Assistance: Physical conduct, psychological influence, assistance by omission (if there is a duty to act).
Psychological influence:
Presence, even with determination not to interfere or passive acquiescence, or presence with the secret intention to aid is not enough.
May be enough if presence plus minimal encouragement (express assurance not to interfere, prior agreement to assist)
Must in fact assist the commission of the offense: Accomplices whose acts are intended to assist but are totally ineffectual will not be criminally liable.
BUT: If assistance is rendered, any assistance, no matter how trivial, will be enough.
No Causation Requirement: Even if the assistance was causally unnecessary for the commission of the offense, the accomplice can still be criminally liable as an accomplice.

Question 6

Complicity Mens Rea

Answer 6

Intent: Accomplices must intentionally aid the primary party to commit the offense.
Intent to do the conduct that assisted the primary party to commit the offense; and
Intent, by such assistance, that the primary party commit the offense.

Question 7

State v. Hoselton

Answer 7

Teens friend breaking onto barge and he didn’t know, A defendant is not a principal in the second degree unless he participates in the crime while sharing the criminal intent of the principal in the first degree.

Question 8

Riley v. State

Answer 8

Riley and Portalla opened fire on crowd and two people were seriously wounded. Charged with two counts of first-degree assault. State couldn’t prove which person shot which victim. A defendant is responsible for another person’s commission of a result crime if he shared the same mental intent regarding the result.

Question 9

Natural and Probable Consequences Doctrine

Answer 9

Accomplice liable for any criminal act in which the ordinary course of things was the natural and probable consequence of the crime that he advised or commanded, even if he did not intend the consequence of share the principal’s intent

-only applies to some states, MPC does not apply

Question 10

Analysis of natural and probable consequences doctrine

Answer 10

1) Did the primary party commit the target offense?
2) If yes, was the secondary party an accomplice to the target offense?
3) If yes, then did the primary party commit another crime beyond the target offense (usually in the course of committing the target offense)?
4) If yes, then was that crime a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the target offense encouraged or facilitated by the accomplice? (Look to specific circumstances surrounding the event).

Question 11

State v. VT

Answer 11

Boys stole family member’s camcorder. Evidence of mere presence is insufficient to demonstrate complicity in a crime.

Question 12

State v. Helminstein

Answer 12

Kids driving around robbed store. A criminal defendant may not be convicted based on the testimony of an accomplice if there is no other corroborating evidence connecting the defendant to the commission of the offense.

Question 13

People v. Genoa

Answer 13

Police officer suggested that D give him 10K to buy drugs and police officer would sell them and make a profit. A defendant who intends to aid and abet a crime that subsequently never takes place cannot be convicted as an accomplice to that crime.

Question 14

Innocent Instrumentality Rule

Answer 14

A person who effects a criminal act through an unwitting or innocent agent is a principal in the first degree.
-separate from accomplice liability

Question 15

Defenses to Accomplice Liability

Answer 15

If principle raises excuse defense- no acquittal for accomplice
If principle raises justification defense- accomplice should receive acquittal
justification and excuse defenses for accomplice
abandonment
legislative exemptions
attack the elements

Question 16

Abandonment of complicity

Answer 16

A person who provides assistance to another to promote or facilitate a crime, but then abandons it can avoid accountability for the subsequent criminal acts of the Principal. [Both MPC & C/L]
Must communicate withdrawal to the principal and make a bona fide effort to neutralize the effect of prior assistance (will depend on the type of assistance).
BUT: Accomplice will still be liable for criminal acts that took place while the accomplice was attached to the crime.
If the accomplice encouraged the crime, they may not be able to abandon if they do so at the point when the event is unstoppable.