Accomplice and conspirator liability is a tricky thing. One of the bedrocks of American criminal law is that you must intend to commit the crime. No intent, no crime.
It makes sense when we hold accomplices and co-conspirators liable for what they did intend to do. Accomplices intended to aid and abet the crime. Co-conspirators intended to join the conspiracy. They can be sent to jail for each of these crimes.
The trouble comes when we hold others liable for a crime committed by someone else. Particularly when the accomplice had no warning that this someone else would commit the crime. Particularly when he can be charged with murder.
If you loan a car to a friend, and you know that the car will be used in a robbery, and the borrowers then drive to the site of a robbery in your car and murder someone, you could be liable for felony murder.
Even though you weren't there. Even though you never intended to murder.
"No car, no murder," the prosecutor will say.
The felony murder rule eliminates the notion of intent altogether. You didn't have to intend to murder. It doesn't even need to be foreseeable that your actions will lead to murder. You can still be held liable if you somehow aided in the crime.
Co-conspirators can also be held liable for the actions of others. If you conspire to rob a grocery store, and in the course of that robbery, the store clerk is shot and killed by your co-conspirator, you too can be liable for the murder. Why? Because you intended to join the conspiracy, you intended to rob the store, and you knew there was a chance that someone would get killed. You took that risk.
Accomplices sentenced under the felony murder rule often did not take any of those steps. They didn't join a conspiracy. They didn't intend to rob. They loaned a friend a car.
And now they're convicted murderers.
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