Opinion ID: 2576242
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Complicity for Unintentional Acts

Text: Complicity is not a separate and distinct crime or offense. Rather, it is a theory by which a defendant becomes accountable for a criminal offense committed by another. People v. Thompson, 655 P.2d 416, 418 (Colo.1982). We have held that, in Colorado, complicitor liability extends to reckless and negligent forms of homicide committed by the principal. Colorado's complicity statute reads: A person is legally accountable as principal for the behavior of another constituting a criminal offense if, with the intent to promote or facilitate the commission of the offense, he or she aids, abets, advises, or encourages the other person in planning or committing the offense. § 18-1-603, C.R.S.2004. In People v. Wheeler, 772 P.2d 101 (Colo.1989), we considered whether the defendant's conviction as a complicitor to criminally negligent homicide could stand. The defendant, Laurie Wheeler, was involved in an altercation that took place between her neighbor, Timothy Bothun, and her common law husband, Mitchell Anderson, which resulted in Bothun's death. Anderson was charged as a principal and Wheeler was charged under a theory of complicity liability with second degree murder as well as the lesser included offenses of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. The jury convicted Wheeler of criminally negligent homicide. In concluding that Wheeler's conviction should stand, we explicitly rejected Wheeler's argument that it is logically impossible to aid and abet another's unintentional act. We held that our complicity statute only requires knowledge by the complicitor that the principal is engaging in, or about to engage in, criminal conduct. Id., at 104. Consequently, we explained that the jury could find Wheeler guilty of criminally negligent homicide on a theory of complicity if it believed that she knew Anderson, the principal, was about to engage in conduct that was a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would exercise. Id. Similarly, here, the jury could have found that Grissom knew that Love was about to engage in reckless conduct, i.e., conduct that disregard[ed] a substantial and unjustifiable risk that a result will occur or that a circumstance exists. § 18-1-501(8), C.R.S. (2004). We reaffirmed the Wheeler holding in Bogdanov v. People where we explained that when a complicitor intentionally assists or encourages another whom the complicitor knows will thereby engage in conduct that grossly deviates from the standard of reasonable care and poses a substantial and unjustifiable risk of death to another, such a mental state should suffice for complicity liability for an underlying crime defined by the culpable mental states of recklessness or negligence. 941 P.2d 247, 251 (Colo.1997), overruled on other grounds by Griego v. People, 19 P.3d 1, 7 (Colo.2001); see also Palmer v. People, 964 P.2d 524, 531 (Colo.1998). Wheeler is consistent with cases from other states holding that accomplice liability extends to unintentional crimes committed by the principal when the complicitor and the principal are acting in a common enterprise. See, e.g., State v. Foster, 202 Conn. 520, 522 A.2d 277 (1987)(where A gave B a knife with which to guard the victim after both A and B had assaulted the victim, so that A could find a rape victim who could perhaps identify the victim as the rapist and B killed the victim while A was gone, A could be convicted of criminally negligent homicide as an accomplice); People v. Turner, 125 Mich.App. 8, 336 N.W.2d 217 (1983)(where defendant supplied a gun to the principal without a safety catch and instructed the principal in how to aim the gun and the gun then went off killing a bystander the defendant could be convicted as an accomplice for involuntary manslaughter); State v. McVay, 47 R.I. 292, 132 A. 436 (1926)(defendant who gave instructions for a steamship to proceed knowing that the boilers were not in good condition could be held liable for the many lives lost as a complicitor to manslaughter). In State v. Fennewald, the Missouri Supreme Court rejected the argument that `there can be no common design to commit a negligent act resulting in homicide;' and that `to render a person guilty of negligent homicide, the negligent act which caused the death must have been the personal act of the party charged and not the act of another' 339 S.W.2d 769, 771-74 (Mo.1960). The Fennewald court then found that accomplice liability for manslaughter could apply to the other party where both parties were recklessly engaged in a drag race. See also In re Clark, 2004 WL 1615942  (Ohio App. July 13, 2004) (finding that both drivers in a drag race may be held equally liable because when two drivers both operate their motor vehicles by traveling at excessive speeds (in the instant case approximately 100 m.p.h.), each driver should be charged with knowledge that such conduct has a high likelihood of resulting in serious injury or death.) People v. Evans, 124 Ill.App.3d 634, 80 Ill.Dec. 100, 105, 464 N.E.2d 1083 (1984)(where one of the participants of a drag race collided with two other cars causing three deaths, the other participant, whose car was not involved in the accident, was a complicitor to three counts of reckless homicide). In these common enterprise cases, where both parties are acting in concert to commit a threshold crime, but the principal ultimately commits a more serious crime than the complicitor initially intended, the complicitor can be held liable for the crime committed by the principal. Like the complicitor and principal involved in the cases cited above, Wheeler and Anderson were engaged in a common enterprise to assault Bothun. Anderson entered Bothun's apartment holding a knife in his hand and Wheeler followed Anderson into the room. When a fight broke out between Anderson and Bothun, Wheeler became directly involved by jumping on top of Bothun and pulling Bothun's head back by his hair. As in the above cases, we held that Wheeler could properly be held liable as a complicitor to Anderson's stabbing of Bothun because she aided Anderson in the preceding assault, even though there was no evidence that she intended to kill Bothun.