Opinion ID: 1974989
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Accomplice Liability for Murder

Text: Defendant Sabatino contends that the trial Court erroneously instructed the jury on the nature of accomplice liability. The Maine Criminal Code specifically regulates accomplice responsibility in criminal activity in section 57, which, in pertinent part, provides as follows: § 57. Criminal liability for conduct of another; accomplices 1. A person may be guilty of a crime if it is committed by the conduct of another person for which he is legally accountable as provided in this section. 2. A person is legally accountable for the conduct of another person when:       C. He is an accomplice of such other person in the commission of the crime, as provided in subsection 3. 3. A person is an accomplice of another person in the commission of a crime if: A. With the intent of promoting or facilitating the commission of the crime, he solicits such other person to commit the crime, or aids or agrees to aid or attempts to aid such other person in planning or committing the crime. A person is an accomplice under this subsection to any crime the commission of which was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of his conduct ; or . . . . The trial Justice instructed the jury that there were two different ways in which Sabatino could be found to be an accomplice to the crime of murder defined in 17-A M.R.S.A., § 201(1)(A). First, the jury could find that Sabatino intended to promote or facilitate the commission of the crime of murder by Anderson. Sabatino made no objection to this portion of the trial Justice's charge. The trial Justice then explained to the jury that there was a second alternative: Sabatino could be found to be an accomplice to murder if Sabatino intended to promote or facilitate the crime of robbery, and murder was a reasonably foreseeable result of his conduct in the commission of the robbery. Sabatino contends that this instruction was erroneous, because the second sentence of § 57(3)(A) [A person is an accomplice under this subsection to any crime the commission of which was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of his conduct.] must be read as setting forth an additional requirement of accomplice liability, rather than an alternative form of accomplice liability. He argues that accomplice liability for a crime committed by another does not exist unless that crime was both intended by the alleged accomplice and reasonably foreseeable. Such a construction, however, would render the second sentence of § 57(3)(A) superfluous, for, if the commission of a crime is intended, it will always also be reasonably foreseeable, since one cannot intend to accomplish something that is unforeseeable. At any rate, this issue was laid to rest in State v. Goodall, Me., 407 A.2d 268 (1979), in which this Court held that the stated second sentence of the reference section must be read independently from the first sentence. Thus, under the first sentence, liability for a primary crime (here robbery) is established by proof that the alleged actor-accomplice intended to promote or facilitate that primary crime of robbery. But, under the second sentence, liability for any secondary crime (here murder) which may have been committed by the principal actor is established as to the alleged actor-accomplice upon a two-fold showing: (a) that the actor-accomplice intended to promote the primary crime (here robbery), and (b) that the commission of the secondary crime (here murder) was a foreseeable consequence of the actor-accomplice's participation in the primary crime of robbery. This Court concluded in Goodall that the legislature indeed intended to impose liability upon accomplices for those crimes that were the reasonably foreseeable consequence of their criminal enterprise, notwithstanding an absence on their part of the same culpability required for conviction as a principal to the crime, and that the legislature was doing nothing more than adopting the established rule of accomplice liability which existed in Maine prior to the enactment of the Maine Criminal Code. See State v. Simpson, Me., 276 A.2d 292, 295 and note 2 (1971).