can an accomplice be guilty?
by: Ryan • February 8, 2015 • no comments
Nope. At least I don't think so. No one has argued it yet, that I know of.
As I've written about before, we -- defense attorneys -- haven't taken full advantage of State v. Lopez-Minjarez, the case that got rid of the "natural and probable consequences" instruction. But it did more than that. It held -- consistent with statute -- that an accomplice must intend the crime he is convicted of. This would mean, inevitably, that if a defendant intended to aid in a robbery in the second degree, and only a robbery in the second degree, he would not then be guilty of robbery in the first degree. To be guilty of a crime, an accomplice must intend every material element of that crime. If there was some way to be guilty of crime that the accomplice didn't intend, we would essentially be reviving the discarded principle of liability for natural and probable consequences. But here's where it gets interesting.
If a person must intend every material element, what do you do when the material element is one that "intent" cannot, as a matter of law, apply to? The element "armed with a deadly weapon" is a circumstance. You may recall that all material elements can be divided into three categories: conduct, circumstance and result. The culpable mental state of "intentionally" does not, per statute, apply to circumstances. So for an accomplice to be guilty of robbery in the first degree (armed with a deadly weapon), he must intend that the principle is armed with a deadly weapon. But the law says he can't in fact intend a circumstance.
The solution to this puzzle? Simple. An accomplice can't be guilty of a crime where a material element of the crime is a circumstance.
