Opinion ID: 325594
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Alleged Application of an Ex Post Facto Law

Text: 37 As his final contention, Woodcock asserts that with respect to his conviction for bribery, he has been the victim of the application of an ex post facto law. 22 The statute about which he complains, as amended in 1968, provided: 38 'Whoever aids in the commission of a felony, or is an accessory thereto before the fact by counselling, hiring, or otherwise procuring such felony to be committed shall be indicted, tried and punished as a principal.' 39 Ann. Laws of Mass., C. 274 § 2 (emphasis added). Before 1968, 23 that is, at the time of the offense and the trial, the same statute read: 40 'Whoever aids in the commission of a felony, or is an accessory thereto before the fact . . . shall be punished in the manner provided for the punishment of the principal felon.' 41 Thus, the significant language added in 1968 was 'indicted, tried.' The apparent aim of the amendment was to cure an artificial variance problem which permitted an accused to avoid conviction altogether when an indictment named him as a principal but the evidence showed him to be only an accessory before the fact. See Commonwealth v. Benjamin, 358 Mass. 672, 266 N.E.2d 662, 668 (1971). 42 In brief, the evidence pertaining to the bribery was that Woodcock and the other defendants acted through an agent by delegating to Nathaniel Barber, one of the coconspirators, the authority to offer the bribe to Hanley. See 1971 Mass. Adv. Sheets at 1405--07, 1487, 275 N.E.2d at 64, 110. Woodcock argues that prior to the 1968 amendment to C. 274 § 2, this evidence made him at most an accessory before the fact. In affirming his conviction as a principal, therefore, he contends that in conceptual terms (though not expressly), the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts applied the 1968 amendment to his case. 24 43 The fundamental difficulty with this argument is that it has apparently long been the Massachusetts rule in bribery cases that one who effects a bribe through an agent can be convicted as a principal. See Commonwealth v. Mannos, 311 Mass. 94, 108, 40 N.E.2d 291, 299 (1942); Commonwealth v. Connolly, 308 Mass. 481, 489--90, 33 N.E.2d 303, 308--09 (1941). 25 Thus, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in no way applied a new principle of law to the appellant's case, and we have no occasion to consider whether it would have constituted an ex post facto law if the Court had done so. 26 In truth, it appears that Woodcock's objection is not one of constitutional dimension but rather relates to the sufficiency of the evidence to convict him of bribery, an issue which the state courts have answered adversely to him.