Court Opinion

ID: 9760917
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:23:21.004445+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:18.448005
License: Public Domain

Shea, J.
(concurring). I agree with all of the court’s opinion except the portion of the discussion of accessory liability which intimates that the mental state required of an accomplice who is charged with a crime is something less than that which must be proved against a principal. “The prevailing view is that the accomplice must . . . have the mental state required for the crime of which he is to be convicted on an accomplice theory.” LaFave & Scott, Criminal Law § 64, p. 506. We adopted this view in State v. Harrison, 178 Conn. 689, 694, 425 A.2d 111 (1979): “The accessory statute, § 53a-8, sets forth the element of intent as a twofold *834requirement: that the accessory have the intent to aid the principal and that in so aiding he intends to commit the offense with which he is charged.” (Emphasis in original.) In State v. Haddad, 189 Conn. 383, 399, 456 A.2d 316 (1983), we reaffirmed this position by applying to an accomplice the statutory definition that “[a] person acts ‘intentionally’ with respect to a result or to conduct described by a statute defining an offense when his conscious objective is to cause such result or to engage in such conduct.” General Statutes § 53a-3 (11). We have no occasion to consider any exceptions to this essential for accomplice liability, the most widely known at common law being the felony murder rule, a modified version of which is contained in General Statutes § 53a-54c.
In stating that an accomplice need not “endorse every act of his coparticipant in crime” or “possess the Intent to commit the specific degree of the robbeiy charged or the intent to possess a deadly weapon” the majority opinion appears to water down these principles. The fact that no specific intent is made an element of the crimes for which the defendants were convicted, robbery in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-134 (a) (2) and kidnapping in the second degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-94, does not remove the necessity for proof of a general intent to perform the acts which constitute the offense. State v. Martin, 189 Conn. 1, 13, 454, A.2d 256 (1983); State v. Bitting, 162 Conn. 1, 5, 291 A.2d 240 (1971). Unless it was the “conscious objective” of each defendant that he or another participant perform all of the acts necessary to constitute the particular crime, he would not be guilty of it. This requirement must extend to those acts which enhance the degree of the crime as well as to those which constitute the basic crime itself. Otherwise an accomplice might be convicted of an offense although he did not entertain the same mental state required by statute for conviction of the principal.
*835Although the bare recital by the trial court of the provisions of our accessory liability statute is hardly a sufficient explanation of the principles we have discussed, I agree that the deficiency in the charge is not of constitutional proportions. The manner in which the crimes were committed, including the presence of the defendants at the scene and their participation in what must have been a preconceived plan to rob the victim by using the gun they must have known that Faila possessed, is strongly persuasive that they shared his intention to perform the acts required for the crime of robbery in the first degree. The evidence is even more overwhelming with respect to the kidnapping offense in which they played the leading roles. The absence of a request to charge on accessory liability or an exception to the charge given is probably attributable to the judgment of trial counsel that no significant issue concerning the intention of the defendants in relation to their participation in the crimes was presented by the evidence. “In the absence of a request or an exception, to warrant reversal: the error must consist of a failure to submit to the jury the. essential ingredients of the offense on which the conviction rests; Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 107, 65 S. Ct. 1031, 89 L. Ed. 1495 (1945); see State v. Reardon, [172 Conn. 593, 602, 376 A.2d 65 (1977)]; or the case must involve plain error requiring such result in the interest of justice. Practice Book § 3063; State v. Gelinas, 160 Conn. 366, 279 A.2d 552 (1971); cf. Fed. R. Crim. Proc. 52 (b); United States v. Clark, [475 F.2d 240, 250 (2d Cir. 1973)].” State v. Kurvin, 186 Conn. 555, 561, 442 A.2d 1327 (1982). The record here does not support either of those grounds for ordering a new trial.