McKnight v. State
| Decision Date | 16 November 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 45S03-9511-CR-1291,45S03-9511-CR-1291 |
| Citation | 658 N.E.2d 559 |
| Parties | Stanley D. McKNIGHT, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee. |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
James F. Stanton, Superior Court of Lake County, Appellate Division, Crown Point, for appellant.
Pamela Carter, Attorney General, Arthur Thaddeus Perry, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, for appellee.
ON PETITION TO TRANSFER
Appellant was charged with Murder and Assisting a Criminal. Ind.Code Ann. § 35-42-1-1 (West Supp.1992); Ind.Code Ann. § 35-44-3-2 (West 1986). A jury acquitted him of the murder charge, but found him guilty of Assisting a Criminal, a Class C felony, and sentenced him to seven years. Appellant then filed an appeal, claiming that because the principal in the alleged crime had already been acquitted in a separate trial, his conviction could not stand. In a memorandum decision, the Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed appellant's conviction on the Assisting a Criminal charge. This is an appeal from that decision. Transfer is granted. Ind.Appellate Rule 11(B)(2).
On February 21, 1992, at about 7:30 p.m., Judi Ramirez, Mark Krajewski, and appellant Stanley McKnight arrived at Michael and Cindy Adams' trailer. Together with Cindy Adams, wife of Michael Adams, they began drinking beer and schnapps. At about 8:15 p.m., Michael Adams arrived at the trailer and joined them in the drinking. Both Adams and Krajewski quickly became intoxicated to the point of slurring their speech and losing balance. Krajewski downed several bottles of schnapps, while Adams did likewise with a bottle of brandy. Krajewski eventually made himself sick and vomited in the bathroom of the trailer.
When Krajewski returned to the group, he began trading insults with Cindy Adams. He repeatedly called her "a whore," "a bitch," and "a slut," then clumsily lunged at The next morning, Adams and appellant went out to the car and found Krajewski dead. Adams went outside and came back in the trailer saying, Appellant then checked the body for himself and returned to the trailer saying, "He's dead."
her. Michael Adams then grabbed Krajewski and took him outside. Appellant followed. When Adams and appellant returned to the trailer, they told Ramirez that Krajewski had passed out and was in appellant's car. Everyone but Krajewski returned to the trailer and went to sleep.
Together, Adams, Ramirez, and appellant took Krajewski's corpse by car to Benton County. Once there, Adams and appellant dumped the body into a cornfield.
Lake County police officers arrested Adams and appellant at the trailer on Feb. 22, 1992. After being advised of his rights, appellant told a Lake County detective that he did not kill anyone and that Adams struck Krajewski twice. He also said that they had taken Krajewski's body south, near Indianapolis. Appellant was then taken to the Lake County Police Department. He later accompanied some officers to Benton County and led them to Krajewski's body.
Appellant's written and oral statements were admitted into evidence at trial. In those statements, appellant admits to helping Adams put Krajewski in the car and helping Adams dispose of the body, but denies having killed or having helped kill Krajewski.
Krajewski's cause of death was established by a stipulation to a pathologist's written report. The cause of death was acute blood loss caused by four stab wounds--two to the abdomen, one to the chest, and one to the left elbow. The pathologist also reported a concentration of ethanol (grain alcohol) in Krajewski's blood.
Appellant claims that his conviction as an accessory under the Assisting a Criminal statute should be overturned and his sentence vacated because the principal was acquitted of the alleged murder in a separate jury trial before appellant's conviction. The Assisting a Criminal statute itself reads as follows:
A person not standing in the relation of a parent, child, or spouse to another person who has committed a crime or is a fugitive from justice who, with intent to hinder the apprehension or punishment of the other person, harbors, conceals, or otherwise assists the person commits assisting a criminal, a Class A misdemeanor. However, the offense is:
(1) a Class D felony if the person assisted has committed a Class B, Class C, or Class D felony; and
(2) a Class C felony if the person assisted has committed murder or a Class A felony, or if the assistance was providing a deadly weapon.
Ind.Code Ann § 35-44-3-2 (West 1986). Because the statute's language is silent on the issue before us, we first look to the common law of accessory criminal liability from which both the Assisting a Criminal statute and the Aiding, Inducing, or Causing statute arise. 1
The common law created two categories of criminal offenders: principals and accessories. Principals were those perpetrators who were found to be present at the time of the criminal act. This category was further split into two subgroups. An offender was a principal in the first degree if he was the absolute perpetrator of the crime. 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries
Page 34 Just as the category of principals was split in two groups, so too was the category of accessories. An accessory before the fact was one who
A principal in the second degree was an offender who was either actively or constructively "present, aiding, and abetting the act to be done." Id. The second group of offenders, called accessories, were those who were neither the chief actors in the offense nor present at its performance, but were in some way concerned therein, either before or after the offense committed. Id. at *35.
being absent at the time of the crime committed, doth yet procure, counsel, or command another to commit a crime. Herein absence is necessary to make him an accessory; for if such procurer, or the like, be present, he is guilty of the crime as principal.
On the other hand, an accessory after the fact was a person who "knowing a felony to have been committed, receives, relieves, confronts, or assists the felon." Id. at
(emphasis added). See also Annotation, Acquittal of Principal--Trial of Accessory, 9 ALR 4th 972 (1981). Although the accessory was not found to be present during the criminal act, his participation required him to suffer the same punishment as a principal whether the accessory's participation occurred before or after the alleged crime.
Principals and accessories were not accorded the same treatment in all respects, however. For instance, absent waiver, "no man could be tried as an accessory till after the principal was convicted, or, at least, he must have been tried at the same time with him; though that law is now much altered...." Blackstone at
Like the current Assisting a Criminal statute, the criminal liability of the accessory was linked to that of his principal at common law. The jurist writes further that a fear of inconsistent verdicts inspired this rule:
[I]f the principal had never been indicted at all, had stood mute, had challenged ... jurors peremptorily, had claimed the benefit of clergy, had obtained a pardon, or had died before the attainder; the accessory in any of these cases could not be arraigned; for non constitit whether any felony was committed or no, till the principal had been attainted; and it might so happen that the accessory should be convicted one day, and the principal acquitted the next, which would be absurd.
In the present case, appellant faces a similar absurdity. Appellant stands convicted of assisting a criminal that a separate jury had acquitted before appellant's conviction. Logic alone seems enough to bar appellant's conviction. Although the Legislature has modified the common law rule against trying accessories before the fact before the principal, it has yet to similarly modify the language of the Assisting a Criminal statute.
Several commentators have recommended that criminal liability as an accessory after the fact be treated as a crime of obstruction of justice rather than a crime based on an accomplice theory of criminal liability. See Model Penal Code and Commentaries § 2.06, comment 1 (1985). The current versions of both the Assisting a Criminal statute and the Aiding, Inducing, or Causing statute have abandoned the common law terms of principal and accessory.
Even with this change in terminology in the Assisting a Criminal statute, the statute has not been completely divorced from its common law origins, however. Though the statute no longer makes the accessory after the fact guilty of the same crime as the principal, his guilt is still contingent on a finding of the degree of his principal's guilt. Both the internal logic of the statute--that the accessory's criminal liability increases with the principal's criminal liability--and the practical absurdity of finding an accessory guilty of assisting a person who was found not be a criminal in a trial on the merits militate against such a reading of the statute. Logic alone would seem to require that one cannot be convicted of assisting a criminal if there is no criminal to assist.
Unlike the Aiding, Inducing or Causing statute, which explicitly changes the common law rule that a principal must be tried before an accessory, the Assisting a Criminal statute is silent on the issue. Its language still echoes Blackstone's definition of accessory after the fact and the legislature [w]hen the legislature enacts a statute in derogation...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Bowen v. State
...each count. See Brown v. State, 672 So.2d 861 (Fla. 3d DCA 1996); F.M. v. State, 622 So.2d 71 (Fla. 2d DCA 1993). But see McKnight v. State, 658 N.E.2d 559 (Ind.1995) (holding conviction for accessory after the fact to crime is precluded if principal is acquitted of crime after jury 2. Know......
-
Stanley v. Walker
...and applies them narrowly in a variety of contexts. See, e.g., Dunson v. Dunson, 769 N.E.2d 1120, 1124-25 (Ind. 2002); McKnight v. State, 658 N.E.2d 559, 562 (Ind.1995); McQuade v. Draw Tite, Inc., 659 N.E.2d 1016, 1018 (Ind.1995); Ind. State Highway Comm'n v. Morris, 528 N.E.2d 468, 473 (I......
-
Forte v. Connerwood Healthcare, Inc.
...the Act. The item of punitive damages remains conspicuously absent from the Act. As our supreme court observed in McKnight v. State, 658 N.E.2d 559, 562 (Ind.1995), "when the legislature enacts a statute in derogation of the common law, [courts] presume that the legislature is aware of the ......
-
Sanquenetti v. State
...between a principal and an accessory has ceased to exist. Johnson v. State, 687 N.E.2d 345, 349 (Ind.1997); McKnight v. State, 658 N.E.2d 559, 560-61 (Ind.1995). Because the common law distinction between principal and accessory is no longer viable, the defendant's reliance on these distinc......
-
§ 30.06 LIABILITY OF THE SECONDARY PARTY IN RELATION TO THE PRIMARY PARTY
...bodily harm).--------Notes:[110] . See § 30.03[B][5]-[6], supra.[111] . See § 30.02 [A] [2], supra.[112] . See McKnight v. State, 658 N.E.2d 559, 561 (Ind. 1995) ("Logic alone would seem to require that one cannot be convicted of assisting a criminal if there is no criminal to assist.").[11......
-
§ 30.06 Liability of the Secondary Party in Relation to the Primary Party
...cause grievous bodily harm). --------Notes:[110] See § 30.03[B][5]-[6], supra.[111] See § 30.02[A][2], supra.[112] See McKnight v. State, 658 N.E.2d 559, 561 (Ind. 1995) ("Logic alone would seem to require that one cannot be convicted of assisting a criminal if there is no criminal to assis......
-
§ 30.02 Accomplice Liability: General Principles
...liability cannot attach unless the substantive elements of a predicate offense [or its attempt] are met").[11] McKnight v. State, 658 N.E.2d 559, 561 (Ind. 1995) ("Logic alone would . . . require that one cannot be convicted of assisting a [crime] if there is no [crime] to assist."). That s......
-
TABLE OF CASES
...306 McDonald v. United States, 312 F.2d 847 (D.C. Cir. 1962), 326 McDowell v. State, 885 N.E.2d 1260 (Ind. 2008), 80 McKnight v. State, 658 N.E.2d 559 (Ind. 1995), 437, 454 McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U.S. 79 (1986), 71 McMullin, State v., 421 N.W.2d 517 (Iowa 1988), 32 McNair v. State, 8......