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Accomplice Liability: When you help someone commit a crime. You are…
Accomplice Liability: When you help someone commit a crime. You are convicted of the offense you helped commit.
MPC: You can be convicted of accomplice by soliciting, aiding, agreeing to aid, or failing to act where there is a legal duty to prevent a crime.
Attempting to Aid: MPC makes a person liable as an accomplice if with the purpose of promoting or facilitating the commission of the offense he attempts to aid such other person in planning or committing it.
Unilateral View: Defendant must believe he has agreement. Undercover stings are allowed (also the view of most jurisdictions).
Withdrawal: A person avoids accomplice liability if he stops participating before the underling crime occures, and then either undoes the effect of his prior actions, or else makes an effort to thwart the crime, typically by warning the authorities (Majority rule). Defendant may be able to verbally withdrawal if his aid was encouragement.
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MPC and most other modern jurisdictions apply the merger doctrine, the common law does not. MPC prohibits cumulative punishment.
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State of Mind Necessary
Purpose: Accomplice liability requires proof of "purpose". Proof that the accomplice wanted the principal to succeed in committing the underlying offense.
Association with the Venture: You have to associate with the venture you wish to bring about (State v. Gladstone; dude helps point another dude to a guy who sells marijuana).
Supplying Goods or Services: Mere knowledge of the criminal objective is not enough for accomplice liability. Instead, the supplier must be shown to have desired to further the criminal objective.
Advance Knowledge: An active participant in a drug transaction has the intent needed to aid and abet when he knows that one of his confederates will carry a gun. The idea of advance knowledge (Rosemond v. US; can a dude be convicted of accomplice with a deadly weapon even though he did not know the other dude had a weapon).
Withdrawal: A defense of withdrawal is available at least in theory to an accomplice who removes all aid and encouragement in a timely manner or gives the police notice of the impending crime in time for them to intervene (Commonwealth v. Huber)