Parties to an offence – Accomplices
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
- Main Content
- Accomplices
- Accessory after the fact
- Perverting Justice
- Compounding Felony
- Neglect to prevent felony
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
6.0 Tutor marked assignment
- References
Introduction
In the last unit, you learned about the primary offenders and persons who aid, enable, counsel or procure the commission of crimes. That does not exhaust the parties to an offence. In this, unit you shall learn about other participants in crime. Examples are: accomplices and accessories.
Objectives
When you have studied this unit, you should be able to:
- Classify confederates in crimes according to their roles in the commission of crime and their liability to
- Differentiate primary offenders from accomplice and
3 Distinguish accomplices, accessories and persons compounding felonies
- Critique statutory definition of parties to an offence.
Main Content
- Accomplices
Participants in the commission of an offence are participes criminis.
An accomplice is a person who is, in any way, concerned with another in the commission of a crime.
Torcia (1993; 220) explains that a person is an accomplice of another in omitting a crime if, with the intent to promote or facilitate the Commission of the crime, he/she solicits, requests, or commands the other person to commit it, or aids the other person in planning, or committing it.
An accomplice has the same characteristics as a ‘perpetrator,’ ‘abettor’, ‘inciter’, but not as an accessory after the fact. He is a person who knowingly, voluntarily, and intentionally unites with the principal offender in a crime and thereby becomes punishable for it.
By definition, an accomplice must be a person who acts with the purpose of promoting or facilitating the commission of the substantive offence for which he/she is charged as an accomplice.
Illustration
Tosin just left the University and got pregnant. She received a letter calling her up for NYSC. She could not be admitted in her State, for every female Corper is required to submit to pregnancy test and would only be deployed if certified “not pregnant”. Tosin presents herself. The Nurse at the Camp centre demands N20, 000 to secure a clean report. Tosin pays, Tola prvides a substitute urine and Tosin obtains a clean report and is duly deployed.
Uzor, an unemployed graduate is desperately in need of a job. Tunde offers to give him one but demands N50,000 bribe. Uzor has paid but no job has been given to him.
Tosin, Tola the Nurse, Uzor, Tunde have been arrested on charges of bribery and corruption.
In these case of corruptly demanding and corruptly receiving bribes, the approach of the court is that a person who pays money in consequence of a corrupt demand is not only an accomplice in the offence of making the demand but will not be an accomplice in the offence of receiving of the money if the circumstances are such that he is to be regarded as a victim rather than a participant.
Looking at the illustrations critically, you would observe the following.
- One party made the following
- The party making the demand holds some position of a authority by which he/she should act to the advantage or detriment of the other
The other party is exposed to:
- Demand with menace
- Involuntary act of payment
Distinguish the actus reus and mens rea in the case of one party and on the other party
Where there is an acquittal under section 7(a) the probability is that the accomplices and other persons charged with aiding, abetting, counseling` or procuring the commission may also be acquitted .See R v Vkata (1958).
This may not always be so. See a contrary view in R v. Obosi (1965).
There are occasion where accomplices and the victim are themselves parties to the offence. At other times, the accomplice may be regarded as a victim rather than a participis criminis. Often it is difficult to determine whether a participant is an accomplice or the victim of an offence.
Statutory Provision
- Statutory Provision The Criminal Code provides
- Section 8: offence comitted in prosecution of common
When two or more persons form a common intention to prosecute an unlawful purpose in conjunction with one another, and in the prosecution of such purpose an offence is committed of such a nature that its commission was a probable consequence of the prosecution of such purpose, each of them is deemed to have committed the offence.
- Section 9: Mode of exeintum
When a person counsels another to commit an offence, and an offence is actually committed after such counsel by the person to whom it is given, it is immaterial whether the offence actually committed is:
- the same as that counseled, or
- a different one, or
- committed in the way counseled or in a different way
Provided in either case that the facts constituting the offence actually committed are a probable consequence of carrying out the counsel
In either case, the person who gives the counsel is deemed to have counseled the other person to commit the offence actually committed by him.
Sections 8 and 9 as stated above are subject to the provision of section 24 which states, ‘Subject to the express provision of this Code, relating to negligent acts and omission, a person is not criminally responsible for an act or omission, which occurs independently of the exercise of his will or for an event which occurs by accident’.
Unless the intention to cause a particular result is expressly declared to be an element of the offence constituted, in whole or part, by an act or omission, the result intended to be caused by an act or omission is immaterial.
Unless otherwise expressly declared, the motive by which a person is induced to do or omit to do an act, or to form an intention, is immaterial so far as regards criminal responsibility.
Common intention
May be express or implied from circumstances.
R V Offor & Offor (1955).
A and B were charged jointly with murder of V. Each had struck V a violent blow with intent, at least, to cause grievous bodily harm. B had a cutlass, A had a stick. The cutlass cut V on the hand when V was defending himself against the attack. The blew from the stick hit his skull. V fell and died of fractured skull and cerebral hemorrhage. Evidence was open to the construction that the intention of each accused person was suddenly formed and formed independently of each other. B and A were convicted of murder.
On appeal, A’s conviction for murder was set aside and one of attempted murder was substituted. Of the second Appellan (B), the counrt held:
“But the conviction of the second accused (B) could not be founded upon pre-conceived intention only. No doubt, he had a preconceived intention just as the first accused had. The intention of both accused was the same, each to cause grievous harm, but since the wound inflicted by B was not in fact the cause of death, it is necessary in order to sustain a conviction against B to establish that he was acting in furtherance of a common intention in conjunction with A to cause grievous harm. See 8 of the Criminal Code. It seems to us on the evidence that the intention of each accused was suddenly formed and formed independently of each other.”
“Common intention may be referred from circumstances disclosed in the evidence and should not be by express agreement, but a presumption of a common intention should not be too seriously applied. That proof of common intention is a condition precedent to conviction in this type of case is appreciated when it is remembered that if a combination of this kind is proved, a fatal blow, though given by one of the party is deemed in the eye of the law to have been given by all those present and aiding. The person actually delivering the blow is no more than the hand by which the others all strike. But on the evidence, it may be that A killed the deceased of his own impulse with a stick suddenly caught up.
Offor & OfforsCase was distinguished in R v. Muonwen (1963). In the latter case, appellants in concert assaulted a police officer. One beat him with a baton, others with their fists. They threw the body, apparently lifeless into a river. The postmortem examination revealed bruises on the head, chest, knee, trachea and thyroid cartilage. The medical report was that the police officer died of strangulation. The evidence before the court was that the first appellant first attacked and beat the police officer with a baton and called on the other appellants to join him in the assault against the deceased. Appellants joined in the beating, using their fists. It was not certain who strangled the deceased but they all joined in throwing him into the river in an apparently lifeless state.
In dismissing the appeal against conviction for murder the appellate court held that by obeying the call of the first appellant to assault the deceased, other appellants had evidenced a common intention with him.
Distinguishing Offors & Offor’s case, the court said:
“ In the present case, we consider that the odds of five to one, the use of the baton and signs of severe beating about the head, chest, and knee of the deceased, coupled with the throwing of his body into the river as soon as he appeared to be dead, all indicate an assault of such violence as to justify the judge in holding that there was a common intention at least to do grievous harm and that the killing of the deceased in circumstances amounting to murder was a probable consequence of the prosecution of that intention. In the result the appeals of the five appellants are dismissed”.
R V Alagba
The Judicial Committee Of the Privy Counsil approved the judgment of the West African Court of Appeal(WACA) to the effect that where on a murder charge, the evidences established that a deliberate and unprovoked attack of a kind likely to endanger human life and resulting as probable consequence in the infliction of grievous harm on one and the death of another was carried out in concert by all the accused in circumstances pointing irresistible to common design, the judge in dealing with the execution of common design, was correct in saying “it does not matter which of the accused did what”
Garba V Hadejia N A (1961)
Two men set out to meet a girl as she was returning from the market. Both carried sticks; one of them struck her from the back and she died later in consequence of it.
Held: There was no doubt that both men intended that actual violence should be used and it seemed a highly probable consequence of the use of violence in these circumstances that the violence would cause death.
Atanyi V R (1955)
Two men went out to steal at night from a compound. One was armed to the knowledge of both. The owner surprised them and one of them killed him. Held the appellant killed.
Sometimes, the court omits to consider section 8.
Liability for unwilled Act
- The import of section 24 of the Criminal Code is to exculpate a person from liability for acts or omission which occur independently of the exercise of his will or from the unwilled act of another.
The operation of this section may be excluded expressly or by necessary infliction as in section 8 and 9.
Victim or Accomplice
Principes Criminis include principal parties, accessories and accomplices. Accomplices are sometimes principal offenders and at other times victims.
In order to determine whether a participant in crime is an accomplice or a victim of the offence charged, Bairamian FJ. proffered this very helpful test.
“It would be wiser to focus one’s attention, rather on the question of accomplice vel non, and ask oneself:-
- did the witness counsel the commission of the offence, or
(b ) did he aid in the commission of the offence (c ) did he help to over up the offence.
If the answer is yes, to any of those questions, then the witness is an accomplice”
See R v Ezekpe & Anor (1962) for details.
Conclusion
An accomplice is a participant in he commission of a crime,; he either facilitates, solicits, requests or commands another to commit an offence or incites, abets, and aids in planning or committing it. What distinguishes an accomplice from a principal offender is the degree of liability to punishment.
Summary.
In this unit, you learned about accomplices, and distinguished them from the principal parties to an offence. Sometimes it is difficult to decide whether one is an accomplice or a victim. You also learned about parties to an offence who form a common intention, act in concert with one another in prosecution of the common purpose. Any member of the confederate in crimes who seeks to resile from the common intent and purpose must clearly put others on notice, if he is to escape criminal responsibility.
Tutor-Marked Assignment
- Who is an accomplice in the commission of crime and how is he/she different from (a) primary offender (b) a victim of
- Distinguish sections 7 (d), 10, and 127 of the Criminal
REFERENCES
Gurland, N.M (2003), Criminal Law for Criminal Justice. Professional, Glencoe MC Graw-Hill, new York