Students' Page > Criminal Law > Unit 5

Parties to Crime

Doctrine of Complicity

  • Also called the doctrine of parties to crime
  • Establishes the conditions under which two or more persons incur liability for the conduct of another, before, during, and after the commission of a crime.
  • Complicity assigns the actus reus and the mens rea of one person to the actions and intentions of someone else.
  • Everybody who joins with others to commit crimes is accountable as if they had committed the crime alone.

Vicarious Liability

  • Bases criminal liability of the relationship between someone who commits a crime and someone else.
  • The vicariously liable person doesn’t need to act or intend to commit a crime—some kind of relationship substitutes for both.
  • The most common example is in business.
  • Example: Companies are responsible for environmental crimes committed by their employees.

Common Law Parties to Crime (4)

  1. Principals in the Fist Degree – those who actually commit the crime
  2. Principals in the second degree – aiders and abettors present when crimes are committed, such as lookouts, getaway drivers, and co-conspirators
  3. Accessories before the fact – aiders and abettors not present when crimes are committed, such as those who provide the weapons that others use in murders
  4. Accessories after the fact – individuals who give aid and comfort to persons known to have committed crimes, such as those who harbor fugitives.
  • Modern statutes have done away with the common law rule that principals had to be convicted before accessories could be tried.
  • Now statutes declare accessories both before and during crimes to be principals.
  • These principals are called accomplices.

Not Conspiracy

  • People often confuse accomplice liability with conspiracy, but they are totally different crimes.
  • Conspiracy is an agreement to commit a crime, and is a crime in itself.

Actus Reus

  • Although modern statutes have redefined the common law parties to crimes, the actus reus has remained much the same.
  • Statutes use words like "aid," "abet," "assist," "counsel," "procure," "hire," or "induce" to define accomplice actus reus.
  • These words convey the idea of a positive act in aid of the commission of the offense

The Mere Presence Rule

Mere presence at the scene of a crime is not enough—even when that presence is followed by flight.

This is because "…men who are entirely innocent do sometimes fly from the scene of a crime through fear of being apprehended as guilty parties or from an unwillingness to appear as witnesses." – Bailey v. US

Mere Words?

Words alone are enough to amount to accomplice actus reus if they encourage and show approval of the crime.

Mens Rea (majority rule)

    Most courts require the following:

  1. The specific intent or purpose to commit the acts that amount to aiding another to commit a crime;
  2. The specific intent or purpose to commit the crime itself.

Mens Rea (minority rule)

  • Purpose to commit the acts of aiding and abetting; and
  • Knowledge to the perpetrators criminal purpose
  • Both recklessness and negligence can satisfy the mens rea requirement.
  • Example: If participants can predict that aiding and abetting one crime might reasonably lead to another, they are guilty of both.

Complicity Following Crime

  • The common law includes accessories after the fact—complicity following the commission of crimes—within the scope of liability for the main offense.
  • Example: a person giving a burglar a place to hide made them accessory after the fact, which made them guilty of the burglary.
  • Modern statutes impose liability for complicity following commission of the main crime, but the liability is for separate, less serious offenses.
  • Examples: obstructing justice, interfering with prosecution, and aiding in escape.

Elements of Accessory after the Fact

Actus Reus: Aiding a felon to escape arrest, prosecution, or conviction

Mens Rea: Intent or purpose to aid a felon to escape or to avoid arrest, prosecution, or conviction.

Circumstances: Third person has committed a felony.

Vicarious Liability

  • Complicity applies to accomplices and accessories because they participate in crime.
  • The doctrine of vicarious liability bases criminal liability on the relationship between the person who commits the crime and someone else.
  • Vicarious liability applies mainly to business relationships: employer-employee, manager-corporation, buyer-seller, etc.
  • It can also apply to other situations, such as making the owner of a car liable for the driver’s traffic violations and holding parents liable for their children’s crimes.

Corporate Vicarious Liability

  • Conviction and punishment for business crimes on the basis of vicarious liability are difficult to obtain.
  • Pinpointing responsibility for corporate crime is especially difficult because frequently many people are involved in the decision to break the law.
  • The more spread out a business is, the more difficult it is to attribute responsibility to particular individuals.

Mens Rea on Corporate Crime

  • A corporation cannot have mens rea because it can’t think.
  • Prosecutors must rely on two doctrines to prove corporate liability:
  • Strict liability eliminates the mens rea
  • Vicarious liability attaches the intent of managers and agents the corporation.

Constitutional Issues

  • Criminal punishment based on someone else’s actions, especially when there is no criminal intent, raises constitutional questions.
  • Some courts have ruled that it violates the fundamental fairness required by due process to put someone in jail based on vicarious liability.
  • Also fines paid by corporations are not likely to deter the officers and managers who don’t have to pay them—the policy is not effective.

Individual Vicarious Liability

  • Vicarious liability for business crimes gets most of the attention.
  • However, the doctrine of vicarious liability also applies to nonbusiness offenses.
  • Example: Courts have upheld city ordinances that fine the owner of illegally parked vehicles, regardless of who the operator was.

Parent Liability

Several cities and states have passed laws the make parents responsible for the crimes of their children.

There are few cases decided on the constitutionality of these laws, but so far they do not seem to fare well under constitutional scrutiny.

Arkansas Complicity Laws

An accessory before the fact is now referred to as an accomplice, and one who was formerly an accessory after the fact is now guilty of a separate crime under § 5-54-105 -- hindering apprehension and prosecution. Fight v. State, 314 Ark. 438, 863 S.W.2d 800 (1993).

§ 5-2-402. Liability for conduct of another generally

   A person is criminally liable for the conduct of another person when:

(1) He is made criminally liable for the conduct of another person by the statute defining the offense; or

(2) He is an accomplice of another person in the commission of an offense; or

(3) Acting with the culpable mental state sufficient for the commission of the offense, he causes another person to engage in conduct that would constitute an offense but for a defense available to the other person.

§ 5-2-403. Accomplices

(a) A person is an accomplice of another person in the commission of an offense if, with the purpose of promoting or facilitating the commission of an offense, he:

(1) Solicits, advises, encourages, or coerces the other person to commit it; or

(2) Aids, agrees to aid, or attempts to aid the other person in planning or committing it; or

(3) Having a legal duty to prevent the commission of the offense, fails to make proper effort to do so.

(b) When causing a particular result is an element of an offense, a person is an accomplice in the commission of that offense if, acting with respect to that result with the kind of culpability sufficient for the commission of the offense, he:

(1) Solicits, advises, encourages, or coerces the other person to engage in the conduct causing the result; or

(2) Aids, agrees to aid, or attempts to aid the other person in planning or engaging in the conduct causing the result; or

(3) Having a legal duty to prevent the conduct causing the result, fails to make proper effort to do so.

§ 5-54-105. Hindering apprehension or prosecution

(a) A person commits an offense under this section if, with purpose to hinder the apprehension, prosecution, conviction, or punishment of another for an offense, he:

   (1) Harbors or conceals the person; or

   (2) Provides or aids in providing the person with a weapon, money, transportation, disguise, or other means of avoiding apprehension, discovery, or effecting escape; or

 (3) Prevents or obstructs anyone from performing an act which might aid in the discovery, apprehension, or identification of the person by means of force, intimidation, or the threat of such, or by means of deception; or

(4) Conceals, alters, destroys, or otherwise suppresses the discovery of any fact, information, or other thing related to the crime which might aid in the discovery, apprehension, or identification of the person; or

(5) Warns the person of impending discovery, apprehension, or identification; or

(6) Volunteers false information to a law enforcement officer; or

 (7) Purposefully lies or attempts to purposefully provide erroneous information, documents or other instrumentalities which he knows to be false to a certified law enforcement officer that would distract from the true course of the investigation or inhibit the logical or orderly progress of the investigation.

(b) Hindering apprehension or prosecution is a Class B felony if the conduct of the person assisted in violation of this section constitutes a Class Y or Class A felony, provided that if the defendant shows by preponderance of the evidence that he stands to the person assisted in the relation of parent, child, brother, sister, corresponding steprelationships of the preceding, husband, or wife, hindering is a Class D felony.

c) Hindering apprehension or prosecution is a felony classified one (1) degree below the felony constituted by the conduct of the person assisted in violation of this section if such conduct is a Class B or C felony.

(d) (d) Hindering apprehension or prosecution is a Class A misdemeanor if the conduct of the person assisted in violation of this section is a Class D felony or unclassified felony unless the person in violation of this section was assisting an escapee from correctional custody sentenced after being found guilty of a felony. If so, the violation of this section is a Class D felony. Otherwise it is a misdemeanor classed one (1) degree below the misdemeanor constituted by the conduct of the person assisted in violation of this section.

AFFIRMATIVE ACT

To constitute the crime of accessory after the fact there must have been some affirmative act, as mere passive failure to disclose commission of a crime did not make one an accessory after the fact. Fields v. State, 213 Ark. 899, 214 S.W.2d 230 (1948)

Melton v. State, 43 Ark. 367 (1884)

One who, knowing of a crime, concealed it from the magistrate from anxiety for his own safety and not to shield the criminal, was not an accomplice.

Butt v. State, 81 Ark. 173, 98 S.W. 723 (1906)

The mere fact that one remained silent after learning of the commission, without intending to shield the criminal, did not make him an accessory.

§ 27-16-305. Permitting minor to drive

No person shall cause or knowingly permit his child or ward under the age of eighteen (18) years to drive a motor vehicle upon any highway when the minor is not authorized under this act or is in violation of any of the provisions of this act.

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