Court Opinion

ID: 9540156
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:13:09.867125+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:40.237594
License: Public Domain

POFF, J.,
concurring.
I agree that the convictions in both cases should be affirmed, but I disagree with the constructive-presence rationale in the case of Virginia Sutton.
She was indicted as a principal in the second degree. But the evidence at trial showed that, because she was absent when the felony was committed, she was an accessory before the fact. McGhee v. Commonwealth, 221 Va. 422, 425-26, 270 S.E.2d 729, 731 (1980).* At common law, an accessory before the fact to a felony could not be convicted under an indictment charging him as a principal, and this Court held in Thornton v. Commonwealth, 65 Va. (24 Gratt.) 657, 669-70 (1874), that this rule had survived legislative change. This holding was affirmed and applied in Hatchett v. Commonwealth, 75 Va. (1 Matt.) 925, 931-32 (1882).
At the time those cases were decided, however, the relevant statute provided that “in the case of every felony, every principal in the second degree, and every accessory before the fact, shall be punishable as if he were the principal in the first degree.” Thornton at 669. The decisions in Thornton and Hatchett were based *669upon the substantive difference the Court noted between the Virginia statute and the English statute which provided that “if any person shall become an accessory before the fact to any felony . . . such person may be indicted, tried, convicted and punished, in all respects as if he were a principal felon.” Thornton at 670. Both Courts decided that, while the English statute was broad enough to abolish the distinction between a principal in the second degree and an accessory before the fact, the Virginia statute did not go so far.
In 1936, the General Assembly amended the old statute. Acts 1936, c. 350. As amended, the statute, now Code § 18.2-18, provides that, in the case of every felony except a capital offense, “every principal in the second degree and every accessory before the fact may be indicted, tried, convicted and punished in all respects as if a principal in the first degree.” Since the amendment renders the Virginia statute substantially equivalent to the English statute, it is fair to conclude that the General Assembly, prompted by the opinions in Thornton and Hatchett, intended by the amendment to abolish the common-law distinction.
The distinction was based solely upon the presence of the accused at the commission of the crime. Two things equal to a third are equal to each other. If, as the legislature has provided, an accessory before the fact to a felony and a principal in the second degree can be indicted, convicted, and punished in all respects as a principal in the first degree, the common-law distinction is meaningless, presence is no longer relevant, and it is immaterial that Virginia Sutton was absent when the felony was committed.

 She was not a principal in the second degree because, as the majority notes, she “was in bed in another room” when the felony was committed and, so far as the record shows, was unaware of its occurrence.
At common law, constructive presence by a principal in the second degree meant active participation in some phase of the criminal activity as it was carried out. This contemporaneous participation in the context of an ongoing criminal event is what distinguishes the principal from the accessory before the fact.
State v. Thibodeau, 353 A.2d 595, 605-06 (Me. 1976) (emphasis in original).