Opinion ID: 202332
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Liability as an Accomplice in a Carjacking Case

Text: 23 The indictment reads that aiding and abetting each other with the intent to cause death and serious bodily injury, [the defendants] did take a motor vehicle ... from [the victim], by force and violence . . . . This charge indicted both defendants as principals and as aiders and abettors. See, e.g., United States v. Bennett, 75 F.3d 40, 47-48 (1st Cir.1996) (analyzing a similar indictment). As it turns out, both defendants pled guilty as principals. There was, as we will explain, an ample factual basis for those pleas. 24 However, unwilling to fully acknowledge his culpability as a principal, Matos-Quiñones argues that the stipulation that he was not the shooter of the victim and did not at any time intend that the victim be killed means that he did not share Ortiz-Feliciano's criminal intent and could not be found guilty as Ortiz-Feliciano's accomplice. It is true that an aider and abettor `must share in the principal's essential criminal intent.' 5 United States v. Tarr, 589 F.2d 55, 59 (1st Cir.1978) (quoting United States v. Sanborn, 563 F.2d 488, 491 (1st Cir.1977)). See also, e.g., LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law, § 13.2(b) 2d ed. (2003) (an accomplice is liable only when he shares the requisite mental state for the principal's crime); Evans-Garcia, 322 F.3d at 114 (The aider and abetter must have shared the principal's criminal intent.); United States v. Loder, 23 F.3d 586, 591 (1st Cir.1994). 6 If § 2119 required proof of intent to kill, Matos-Quiñones, who did not at any time intend that the victim be killed, could no more be guilty as an aider and abettor than he could as a principal. 7 However, the carjacking statute makes proof of an intent to seriously harm the driver sufficient to impose liability. Holloway, 526 U.S. at 11, 119 S.Ct. 966. Matos-Quiñones's intent to inflict serious bodily harm on the victim was not the subject of any stipulation, and he could be guilty as a principal or as an aider and abettor on the basis of such intent.