People v. Robinson, Docket No. 126379. Calendar No. 8.
| Decision Date | 31 May 2006 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 126379. Calendar No. 8. |
| Citation | 715 N.W.2d 44,475 Mich. 1 |
| Parties | PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Kevin M. ROBINSON, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Michael A. Cox, Attorney General, Thomas L. Casey, Solicitor General, Kym L. Worthy, Prosecuting Attorney, Timothy A. Baughman, Chief of Research, Training, and Appeals, and Larry L. Roberts, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, Detroit, for the people.
Neil J. Leithauser, Royal Oak, for the defendant.
Defendant and a codefendant, Samuel Pannell, committed an aggravated assault, and Pannell shot and killed the victim, Bernard Thomas. After a bench trial, the trial court convicted defendant of second-degree murder under an aiding and abetting theory. The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court's judgment, because it concluded that there was insufficient evidence that defendant shared or was aware of Pannell's intent to kill.
We hold that under Michigan law, a defendant who intends to aid, abet, counsel, or procure the commission of a crime, is liable for that crime as well as the natural and probable consequences of that crime. In this case, defendant committed and aided the commission of an aggravated assault. One of the natural and probable consequences of such a crime is death. Therefore, the trial court properly convicted defendant of second-degree murder. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and reinstate defendant's conviction of second-degree murder.
According to the evidence adduced at trial, defendant and Pannell went to the house of the victim, Bernard Thomas, with the stated intent to "f* * * him up." Under Pannell's direction, defendant drove himself and Pannell to the victim's house. Pannell knocked on the victim's door. When the victim opened the door, defendant struck him. As the victim fell to the ground, defendant struck the victim again. Pannell began to kick the victim. Defendant told Pannell that "that was enough," and walked back to the car. When defendant reached his car, he heard a single gunshot.1
Following a bench trial, the trial court found defendant guilty of second-degree murder "on the prong of great bodily harm only."2 Specifically, the court found that defendant drove Pannell to the victim's house with the intent to physically attack the victim. The court also found that once at the victim's home, defendant initiated the attack on the victim, and that defendant's attack enabled Pannell to "get the upper-hand" on the victim. The court sentenced defendant to a term of 71 months to 15 years.
The Court of Appeals reversed defendant's murder conviction, holding that there was insufficient evidence to support defendant's second-degree murder conviction.3 The Court held that the trial court improperly convicted defendant of second-degree murder because there was no evidence establishing that defendant was aware of or shared Pannell's intent to kill the victim.
This Court granted the prosecution's application for leave to appeal, directing the parties to address the elements of accomplice liability and the mens rea required to support a conviction of aiding and abetting second-degree murder.4
The requirements of the aiding and abetting statute5 are a question of law that this Court reviews de novo.6 "[W]ords and phrases that have acquired a unique meaning at common law are interpreted as having the same meaning when used in statutes dealing with the same subject."7 In evaluating defendant's claim regarding the sufficiency of the evidence, this Court reviews the evidence in a light most favorable to the prosecutor to determine whether any trier of fact could find the essential elements of the crime were proven beyond a reasonable doubt.8 Findings of fact by the trial court may not be set aside unless they are clearly erroneous.9
This case involves liability under our aiding and abetting statute, MCL 767.39, which provides:
Every person concerned in the commission of an offense, whether he directly commits the act constituting the offense or procures, counsels, aids, or abets in its commission may hereafter be prosecuted, indicted, tried and on conviction shall be punished as if he had directly committed such offense.
Unlike conspiracy10 and felony murder,11 which also allow the state to punish a person for the acts of another, aiding and abetting is not a separate substantive offense. Rather, "being an aider and abettor is simply a theory of prosecution"12 that permits the imposition of vicarious liability for accomplices.
This Court recently described the three elements necessary for a conviction under an aiding and abetting theory:
"(1) the crime charged was committed by the defendant or some other person (2) the defendant performed acts or gave encouragement that assisted the commission of the crime; and (3) the defendant intended the commission of the crime or had knowledge that the principal intended its commission at the time that [the defendant] gave aid and encouragement."13
The primary dispute in this case involves the third element. Under the Court of Appeals analysis, the third element would require the prosecutor to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant intended to commit the identical offense, here homicide, as the accomplice or, alternatively, that a defendant knew that the accomplice intended to commit the homicide. We reaffirm that evidence of defendant's specific intent to commit a crime or knowledge of the accomplice's intent constitutes sufficient mens rea to convict under our aiding and abetting statute. However, as will be discussed later in this opinion, we disagree that evidence of a shared specific intent to commit the crime of an accomplice is the exclusive way to establish liability under our aiding and abetting statute.
The theory that a defendant could be liable for another's criminal actions as an "aider and abettor" goes back to the common law. At common law, there were four categories of offenders to a felony:
(1) principal in the first degree-he actually engaged in the felonious conduct; (2) principal in the second degree-he was present when the felony was committed and aid and abetted its commission; (3) accessory before the fact-he was not present when the felony was committed but aided and abetted prior to its commission; (4) accessory after the fact-he was not present when the felony was committed but rendered aid thereafter in order to protect the felon or to facilitate his escape.14
Principals in the second degree had to intend to commit the crime charged or else be aware of the intent of the principal in the first degree to commit that crime.15 But accessories before the fact were "guilty of all incidental consequences which might reasonably be expected to result from the intended wrong."16 Thus, at common law, one could be guilty of the natural and probable consequences of the intended crime or the intended crime itself, depending on whether the actor was a principal in the second degree or an "accessory before the fact." Michigan's aiding and abetting statute has been in force and substantively unchanged since the mid-1800s.17 The 1855 statute, 1855 PA 77, § 19, which is nearly identical to the current statute, stated:
The distinction between an accessory before the fact, and a principal, and between principals in the first and second degree in cases of felony, is abrogated; and all persons concerned in the commission of a felony, whether they directly commit the act constituting the offence, or aid and abet in its commission, though not present, may hereafter be indicted, tried and punished, as principals, as in the case of a misdemeanor.18
When a statute employs general common-law terms, courts will interpret the statute by looking to common-law definitions, absent clear legislative intent to change the common law.19 As this Court has previously indicated, the aiding and abetting statute was a legislative abolition of the common-law distinctions between principals and accessories.20 Beyond that, there has been little case law from this Court interpreting the language of this statute.21 However, we note that there is no language in the statute that demonstrates a legislative intent to abrogate the common-law theory that a defendant can be held criminally liable as an accomplice if: (1) the defendant intends or is aware that the principal is going to commit a specific criminal act;22 or (2) the criminal act committed by the principal is an "incidental consequence[ ] which might reasonably be expected to result from the intended wrong."23
Accordingly, we hold that when the Legislature abolished the distinction between principals and accessories, it intended for all offenders to be convicted of the intended offense, in this case aggravated assault, as well as the natural and probable consequences of that offense, in this case death. The case law that has developed since the Legislature codified these common-law principles provides examples of accomplice liability under both theories.
Under the natural and probable consequences theory, "[t]here can be no criminal responsibility for any thing not fairly within the common enterprise, and which might be expected to happen if the occasion should arise for any one to do it."24 In Knapp, the defendant and several other men engaged in sexual intercourse with the victim. After the defendant left, one of the men threw the woman from a second-story window. A jury convicted the defendant of manslaughter. This Court reasoned that because there was no evidence that the defendant threw the victim out the window, the jury must have held him accountable for the actions of the other men.
The Knapp Court reversed the defendant's conviction for manslaughter because there was no proof...
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