Chapter 7 Parties to Crime and Vicarious Liability PDF

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Chapter 7 notes from the course Criminal Law. ...

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Parties to Crime ○ When, under extraordinary circumstances, teamwork turns malicious, then benign “teamwork” can become “complicity” in criminal law. ○ Complicity e  stablishes when you can be criminally liable for someone else’s conduct. ○ It applies criminal liability to accomplices and accessories because they participate in crimes. ○ Vicarious liability e  stablishes when a party can be criminally liable because of a relationship. ○ Vicarious liability transfers the criminal conduct of one party to another because of their relationship. ○ By far the most common relationships are business relationships, such as employer-employee, corporation-manager, buyer-seller, producer-consumer, and service provider-recipient. ○ First, the agency  theory of accomplice liability assumes that we’re autonomous agents with the freedom to choose our actions. ○ We become accountable for someone else’s actions when we voluntarily “join and identify with those actions.” ○ Underlying the second theory, forfeited  personal identity theory, is  the idea that when you choose to participate in crime, you forfeit your right to be treated as an individual. ○ The criminal law in focus box defines the four common law parties to crime. ○ These four distinct categories used to be important because of the common law rule that the government couldn’t try accomplices until principals in the first degree were convicted. ○ Today, there are two parties to criminal complicity: ■ Accomplices, p  articipants before and during the commission of crimes. ■ Accessories, p  articipants after crimes are committed. Participation Before and During the Commission of a Crime ○ All participants before and during the commission of a crime are prosecuted for the crime itself. ○ So participation before and during a crime is a very serious business, because the punishment for being an accomplice is the same as for the person who actually committed the crime. ○ Participation after crimes are committed are prosecuted as a separate, minor offense. ○ Accessories are punished for misdemeanors, a much less serious offense, because accessories are considered obstructers of justice, not felons. ○ Conspiracy i s an agreement to commit some other crime. ○ A conspiracy to commit murder is not murder; its the lesser offense of agreeing to commit murder.

Participating in a murder is the crime of murder itself. The rule that the crime of conspiracy and the crime the conspirators agree to commit are separate offenses is called the p  inkerton rule. ○ The name comes from a leading spired to evade taxes. Accomplice Actus Reus ○ The words “aid,” “abet,” “assist,” “counsel,” “procure,” “hire,” or “induce” are widespread. ○ The meaning of these words boils down to one core idea: the actor took “some positive act in aid of the commission of the offense.” ○ Here are a few acts that definitely qualify: ■ Providing guns, supplies, or other instruments of crime. ■ Serving as a lookout. ■ Driving a getaway car. ■ Sending the victim to the principal. ■ Preventing warnings from getting to the victim. ○ Mere presence at the scene of a crime is not enough to qualify as accomplice actus reus. ○ According the the mere  presence rule, even the presence at the scene of a crime followed by flight isn’t enough action. ○ One final point about accomplice actus reus: actions taken after crimes are committed aren’t themselves accomplice actus reus, but juries can use participation after the crime to prove defendants participated before or during the commission of the crime. Participation After the Commission of a Crime ○ In common law, accessories after the fact were punished like accomplices: they were treated as if they’d committed the crime itself. ○ Modern statutes have reduced the punishment to fit this less serious offense. ○ Accessory after the fact is a separate offense, usually a misdemeanor. ○ Sometimes it even has a different name such as, “obstructing justice,” “interfering with prosecution,” and “aiding in escape.” ○ Most accessory-after the fact statutes gave four elements, which includes one actus reus, two mens rea, and one circumstance element: ■ The accessory personally aided the person who committed the crime. ■ The accessory knew the felony was committed. ■ The accessory aided the person who committed the crime for the purpose of hindering the prosecution of that person. ■ Someone besides the accessory actually committed a felony. Vicarious Liability ○ Most vicarious liability involves business relationships, such as employer-employee, manager-corporation, buyer-seller, producer-consumer, and service provider-recipient. ○ ○

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Individual Vicarious Liability ○ Individuals are vicariously liable for their agents’ actions in state cases; most don’t attract our attention. ○ Most common are cases of employees’ crimes, committed within the scope of their employment but without the approval or knowledge of their employers. ○ Because state individual vicarious liability, like federal corporate vicarious criminal liability, depends on statutes, the issue in most vicarious liability cases is interpreting whether the statute actually imposes vicarious liability....