Opinion ID: 696608
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Problem of Applying Principles of Accomplice Liability to Complex Statutory Crimes

Text: 10 As the number of complex criminal statutory crimes has proliferated over the last 30 years, and as the government has attempted to expand the net of criminal liability under them by charging accomplices in addition to principals, the case law and therefore the theory of federal accomplice liability has fallen into some disarray. Even in the days of relatively simple crimes at common law and in earlier federal statutes, the various theories of accomplice liability were often difficult to apply. In this new era of predicate offenses with multiple ancillary conditions and mandatory and other sentencing enhancements, the new complexity of the statutes is causing disparate results based on conflicting ideas of accomplice liability. 11 For example, the continuing criminal enterprise statute punishes drug kingpins with stiff penalties if the drug dealer has five or more employees and certain other conditions are met. In its opinion in the instant case, the district court relied upon United States v. Amen, 831 F.2d 373 (2d Cir.1987), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 1021, 108 S.Ct. 1573, 99 L.Ed.2d 889 (1988). The Second Circuit held that Sec. 2 aiding and abetting liability does not apply at all to the continuing criminal enterprise (CCE) statute, 21 U.S.C. Sec. 848, because Congress only intended the CCE statute to apply to the organizer, supervisor, or manager of the large drug enterprise and to visit upon the perpetrator a harsh set of mandatory minimum penalties. Id. at 381. The court reasoned that to allow Sec. 2 liability to attach would mean that a small-time supplier of drugs to the drug kingpin would be treated as a principal and subjected to penalties designed for a much more serious offender. The court recognized the inherent unfairness of subjecting a potentially peripheral accomplice to severe penalties when an employee integral to the business would be exempt and recognized the practical difficulty of distinguishing an accomplice from an employee. Id. at 382. 12 The Seventh Circuit in a hotly contested en banc decision disagreed with the Second Circuit while recognizing that the five or more employees of the drug kingpin could not be convicted as aiders and abettors because the statute indicates a clear intent to exclude them from liability. United States v. Pino-Perez, 870 F.2d 1230 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 901, 110 S.Ct. 260, 107 L.Ed.2d 209 (1989). The Seventh Circuit found that Sec. 2 automatically applies to federal criminal offenses and disagreed that Sec. 2 is generally inapplicable to the statute as the Second Circuit had held. Id. at 1233. The majority of the en banc judges held that nothing in the legislative history of Sec. 848 prevented accomplice liability and reasoned that identifying accomplices would not be as difficult as the Second Circuit supposed, although the court was unclear about the nature of the mens rea element of accomplice liability under Sec. 848. Id. at 1233-35. 13 Our consideration of this topic is assisted by Sharon C. Lynch's article in the University of Chicago Law Review, Drug Kingpins and Their Helpers: Accomplice Liability Under 21 USC Section 848. 58 U.Chi.L.Rev. 391 (1991). The particular problem she examined in the article was the application of Sec. 2 to Sec. 848--the subject of the split between the Second and Seventh Circuits. Ms. Lynch concluded that courts need to adopt a more careful approach which neither results in a wholesale rejection of accomplice liability nor fails to define the intent element necessary to aid in the violation of each complex statutory crime. Id. at 411. Courts must tailor accomplice liability to the specific crime. As Ms. Lynch correctly observed, Congress left to the courts the task of crafting a full doctrine of accomplice liability. Id. at 410. 14