Opinion ID: 1975121
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Scope of Shared Purpose Requirement for Accomplice Liability

Text: Just as I asked in Part I.A., above, What does `perpetrating or attempting to perpetrate' the underlying felony mean in the context of principal felony-murder liability?, I now ask: what do common purpose and natural or probable consequence mean in the context of accomplice liability? In the absence of the scope of shared purpose requirement for accomplice liability, an accomplice would be liable for all acts of the principal, whether or not they were committed within the common purpose shared by the accomplice. As noted above, however, this court's decisions in Christian and West have followed cases, such as Heinlein, which require the government to meet the scope of shared purpose requirement in addition to the causal link and aiding and abetting requirements. Indeed, the standard felony-murder instruction for multiple defendants itself requires the government to meet the scope of shared purpose requirement: [if] one of them, in the course of the felony [causal link requirement] and in furtherance of the common purpose to commit the felony [scope of shared purpose requirement], kills a human being, both the person who committed the killing and [those] who aided and abetted in the felony are guilty of murder in the first degree. CRIMINAL JURY INSTRUCTION, No. 4.22(C), supra (emphasis added). If all the government had to prove was that the accomplice aided and abetted the felony and that the principal killed someone in the course of the felony, the words and in furtherance of the common purpose to commit the felony would have no meaning. Our most recent felony-murder case, unfortunately, appears to imply, relying on Waller, that the scope of shared purpose requirement is not a distinct element of accomplice felony-murder liability: the intent requirement for murder, in the case against an aider and abettor, is satisfied solely by the aider and abettor's participation in the felony that resulted in the killing. See United States v. Heinlein. Prophet, 602 A.2d at 1095 (emphasis added). (As authoring judge, I say mea culpa.) Of course, this cannot really be so, since the court upheld the use of Criminal Jury Instruction 4.22, discussed above, which includes the scope of shared purpose requirement. But, on the basis of Waller, the court rejected Prophet's argument that we use the aiding and abetting principle of reasonable foreseeability, see Ingram v. United States, 592 A.2d 992, 1003-04 (D.C.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S.Ct. 667, 116 L.Ed.2d 757 (1991), to define the admittedly vague natural and probable consequences language of our accomplice felony-murder liability doctrine. See Prophet, 602 A.2d at 1095; see also Ingram, 592 A.2d at 1000-04 (discussing uncertain and elastic meaning of natural and probable consequences and concluding that reasonable foreseeability is proper standard in context of aider and abettor instruction for armed robbery). It is not clear from Prophet, other than from mere reliance on the language quoted, why the aiding and abetting principle of reasonable foreseeability is not an appropriate interpretation of natural and probable consequences in the context of accomplice felony-murder. It now appears to me, upon further reflection, that because accomplices are exposed to first-degree murder liability only by virtue of the aiding and abetting statute, D.C.Code § 22-105, see Christian, 394 A.2d at 48, Ingram's reasonable foreseeability test is equally applicable to accomplice felony-murder. Under our law, because felony-murder liability for a principal is premised on the act, resulting in a killing, that was part of the commission of the felony, neither intent to kill nor foreseeability of death is a required element. See Christian, 394 A.2d at 48; Branic, 162 U.S.App.D.C. at 13, 495 F.2d at 1069. [4] For principal liability, therefore, if the act that causes the homicide was committed during the commission of the underlying felony (the causal link requirement), then whether the killing was foreseeable is irrelevant. That reasoning applies with equal force to accomplices: to meet the causal link requirement, whether the killing was intended or purposeful, ascertained by some test of foreseeability, is not an issue. Only intent to commit the underlying felony need be proved. Waller, 389 A.2d at 807; accord Prophet, 602 A.2d at 1095. We have seen, therefore, that whether or not the consequence of the principal's act (death) is intended or foreseeable is irrelevant to meeting the causal link requirement for both principal and accomplice liability. But such causal link analysis differs from the question whether the principal's act which caused the death was within the scope of the shared purpose, or whether the death was a natural or probable consequence of the shared purpose. Christian, 394 A.2d at 48. This latter type of foreseeability, a kind of constructive intent with respect to the common purpose and plan for committing the felony, falls under the scope of shared purpose requirement, not the causal link requirement. Cf. Comber, 584 A.2d at 51 (to be guilty of misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter, defendant must commit inherently dangerous misdemeanor that creates a foreseeable risk of appreciable physical injury); United States v. Jones, 678 F.2d 102, 106 (9th Cir.1982) (for accomplice felony-murder, jury must find defendant aided and abetted the killing in addition to aiding and abetting the felony); State v. Noren, 371 N.W.2d at 384 (construing natural and probable consequence language of felonymurder statute to limit liability to deaths that were foreseeable). This meaning of foreseeability is demonstrated by the following hypothetical provided by Professors LaFave and Scott: Even though [accomplice and principal] have made no such agreement, if in the process of robbing or attempting to rob [victim] [principal's] gun goes off accidentally, killing [victim,] [accomplice] would be guilty of the felony murder of [victim] as much as [principal] would be, under the rule concerning parties to crime that all parties are guilty for deviations from the common plan which are the foreseeable consequences of carrying out the plan. LAFAVE & SCOTT, 2 SUBSTANTIVE CRIMINAL LAW § 7.5, at 212 (emphasis added); see, e.g., Wheeler v. United States, 82 U.S.App. D.C. 363, 165 F.2d 225 (1947) (accomplice liable for felony-murder where principal shot and killed person while robbing register in back of store while accomplice held gun on persons in front of store before robbing register in front). Foreseeability under the scope of shared purpose requirement, therefore, is different from foreseeability under the causal link requirement. [5] As this court observed in Ingram, `natural and probable consequences' implies some degree of foreseeability, 592 A.2d at 1002, and therefore some degree of knowledge and intent, as do the legally operative terms shared purpose or common purpose. See Christian, 394 A.2d at 48. In Morriss v. United States, 554 A.2d 784 (D.C.1989), this court, citing LaFave and Scott's chapter on Limits of Accomplice Liability and the section on Foreseeability of Other Crimes, declared: [A]ccomplice liability extends to acts of the principal in the first degree that were a natural and probable consequence of the criminal scheme the accomplice encouraged or aided. 2 LAFAVE AND SCOTT, Substantive Criminal Law § 6.8(b) 157 (1986). Thus, this doctrine was approved by us in application to a premeditated murder, felony murder, and first-degree burglary charge in Williams v. United States, 483 A.2d 292, 298-99 (D.C.1984), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 906, 106 S.Ct. 275, 88 L.Ed.2d 236 (1985). Id. at 789 (emphasis added). Section 6.8(b) of LAFAVE & SCOTT and the cases and statutes cited therein make clear that reasonable foreseeability is a touchstone for natural and probable consequence. This court has never specifically addressed the distinction between foreseeability with respect to the causal link requirement and foreseeability with respect to the scope of shared purpose requirement. As the discussion and cases cited above indicate, however, there indeed is a distinction that is implicit in our doctrine of accomplice liability for felony-murder. Because Prophet did not purport to address the distinction, I conclude that this court has not yet settled the question of whether the aiding and abetting standard of reasonably foreseeable, announced in Ingram, also applies to the scope of shared purpose requirement (rather than the causal link requirement) under the doctrine of accomplice felony-murder.