SU 8: Participation

Question 1

Forms of participation

Answer 1

1. Perpetrator
   a person who satisfies all the definitional elements of a crime.
   e.g murder
2. Accomplice
   a person who doesn’t not satisfy all the definitional elements of a crime but promotes the commission of a crime.
   e.g bigamy, perjury
3. Co-perpetrator
   two or more people who adhere to the requirements of a crime.
4. Indirect- perpetrator
   a person who commits a crime through the instrumentality of another party
   e.g hiring a hitmen to kill x.

Question 2

Non form of participation

Answer 2

Accessory after fact
-a person who after the commission of the crime unlawfully and intentionally helps perpetrator or accomplice to escape liability.
-this person is not present nor aware of the crime.
e.g X has no involvement in the murder but after the commission of the murder assists Y to bury body.

Question 3

Doctrine of common purpose

Answer 3

arises when two or more people agree to commit a crime together or actively associate in a joint unlawful enterprise, each will be responsible for specific criminal conduct.

Question 4

Common purpose principles

Answer 4

1. when two or more people with common purpose to commit a crime, act together to achieve this purpose, conduct of each of them will be imputed to others.
2. in a charge of having committed a crime which involves the causing of the result, the conduct imputed involves the causing of such result.
3. conduct of a member of a group which differs from the group shall not be imputed unless the latter foresaw the possibility of the conduct and later reconciled to that possibility.
4. to prove common purpose is not dependent of prior conspiracy
5. to prove common purpose must be based on a person’s active association in the execution of the particular crime. With murder= person must be actively associated before with the conduct and result.
6. Death of a person is imputed but in a case of negligence it cannot be imputed.

Question 5

Differences between prior conspiracy and active conspiracy

Answer 5

Prior conspiracy
-X need not be present at the scene of the crime
-prior communication is required
- no proof of active association with the actual commission, at the time is required
Active conspiracy
- X needs to be present at the scene at the time of commission
- active association focuses on the conduct of the accused
- Ac is restrictive in nature

Question 6

Two categories of active association

Answer 6

1. where there is a prior agreement to commit the crime
2. where liability arises from active association and participation in a common criminal design with the requisite to commit a crime.

Question 7

Safatsa case judgement

Answer 7

Crowd of 100 people attacked Y at his house.
Attacked Y through pelting stones to his house, hurling petrol bombs through the house windows, as Y tried to flee, they threw him with stones and poured him with petrol setting him alight.
Appellant Division= confirmed the conviction of the sic accused and their convicton of the murder of Y.
Conviction was based on teh common purpose doctrine that the six all has common purpose to kill Y.
Rejection from court= Advanced argument made on behalf of the accused that before the accused are convicted of murder there should be a causal link or connection proved between the individual conduct of each accused to the death of Y.