Accomplice Liability: You Can Be Guilty Even If You Didn't Do the Crime
It may come as a shock to defendants when they're charged with accomplice liability, because some people may not realize that the law can hold you responsible even if you didn't commit a crime yourself. If you're facing criminal charges as an accomplice, this is what you should know:
1.) Your intentions matter when it comes to guilt.
Your presence at a crime isn't what makes you an accomplice. What makes you an accomplice is your intent to either instigate the crime or to participate in it in some way. That means that it is possible to be present at a crime scene and not be an accomplice and to be away from the scene yet still be an accomplice.
For example, if you tell your best friend that you happen to know your boss keeps $500 in the desk in the back of the store you work at and suggest that your friend could probably fit through the back window after the store closes, that makes you an accomplice. On the other hand, if you happen to be with your friend when he suddenly pulls a gun on a shopkeeper and robs him, that makes you a witness but not an accomplice.
2.) You have to take some sort of positive action.
What happens if you tell your friend about the $500 your boss keeps in the back of the store but never suggest robbing the place? Unless you actively encouraged your friend to rob the place or aided him or her in some way, then you aren't guilty of being an accomplice. Merely confiding knowledge of something doesn't make you responsible for your friend's actions unless it can be proven that you knew doing so was all the encouragement your friend needed.
3.) You can end up being guilty of more than the intended crime.
If you do encourage or assist someone in a criminal act, you can end up being responsible for crimes that are reasonably foreseeable, even if you never intended for them to happen.
For example, if you encourage your friend to break into the backroom of the store to steal the $500 and he does so when your boss happens to be there, your boss could end up injured or killed as a result. You may not have ever intended for anybody to be hurt, but that's a reasonably foreseeable event. You would be as guilty as your friend of the crimes.
If you had any kind of foreknowledge of a crime before it was committed it's important to discuss the details with a criminal defense attorney, such as Hart Law Offices, PC, before you discuss them with the police. An attorney can help determine your potential liability -- based on the details of the events that took place -- and advise you on what steps you should take next. If you do have any liability, he or she may be able to negotiate a plea bargain with the police that will allow you to tell what you know with minimal consequences as a result.
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