§ 30.01 COMPLICITY: OVERVIEW TO ACCOMPLICE AND CONSPIRATORIAL LIABILITY

• Jurisdiction: United States

§ 30.01. Complicity: Overview to Accomplice and Conspiratorial Liability¹

This chapter considers multi-party criminal conduct or, more specifically, the circumstances under which a person who does not personally commit a proscribed harm may be held accountable for the conduct of another person with whom he has associated himself. Complicity doctrine is complex and frequently criticized.²

Two bases of complicity are considered here. First and foremost, a person may be held accountable for the conduct of another person if he assists (as that term is more fully explained in § 30.04) the other in committing an offense. Liability of this nature is called "accomplice" or "accessory" liability. Second, in the great majority of jurisdictions, a person who has conspired with another may be held accountable for the conduct of his co-conspirator who commits a crime in furtherance of their agreement. In the latter case, the mere existence of the conspiracy is sufficient to justify liability for the other's conduct; assistance in commission of the crime is not required. Although there is substantial overlap between accomplice and conspiracy liability, they are distinct concepts.³

The common law of complicity used special terms to distinguish among parties to offenses, as described in § 30.03. For purposes of clarity, however, two general terms will also be used in this chapter — the "primary party" (P, for short), and the "secondary party" (S). The "primary party" is the person who personally commits the physical acts that constitute an offense. For example, in a criminal homicide, P is the one whose conduct directly causes the death of V, e.g., the person who shoots or poisons V.⁴ Any person who is not the primary party, but who is associated with him in commission of the offense, is a "secondary party." Generally speaking, S is the person who assists P to commit the offense. S's liability for P's acts is the focus of this chapter.

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^[1] . See generally George P. Fletcher, Rethinking Criminal Law §§ 8.5-8.8 (1978); Glanville Williams, Criminal Law: The General Part §§ 118-41 (2d ed. 1961); Joshua Dressler, Reassessing the Theoretical Underpinnings of Accomplice Liability: New Solutions to an Old Problem, 37 Hastings L.J. 91 (1985); Michael Heyman, Losing All Sense of Just Proportion: The Peculiar Law of Accomplice Liability, 87 St. John's L. Rev. 129 (2013); Douglas Husak, Abetting a Crime, 33 L. & Phil. 41 (2014); Sanford H. Kadish, Complicity, Cause and...