You Can Be Equally Guilty for Just Participating in a Crime
Video Transcribed: This is Wagoner attorney Stuart Ericson, and we are talking about aiding and abetting. So a lot of people are charged with crimes and they basically come to me and say, “But I didn’t do it.” I look at the criminal charges, they could do criminal information and it charges them with a crime. And it says the words aiding and abetting with so and so and it lists one other name or other names.
It’s very confusing to people or it can be, because they’re like, “But I didn’t do it. I didn’t actually do the crime.” Now, here’s what the law says and what you’re going to be stuck with as far as what the law says. The law says all persons or person participating in a crime are equally guilty.
When multiple people are committing crimes, sometimes it’s one or two that seem to do the worst things and there are other people involved that did minimal things. And the law says you all are equally guilty because you’ve participated in the crime. Now, one of the most obvious and kind of famous cartoon and movie, and Hollywood versions of this would be the classic bank robbery where you have four people in a car, three of them with guns, one driver. They pull up to the bank, three people with guns go into the bank, hold everybody up, get the money, and come back in the car. The getaway driver dashes off with everybody in the car.
So guess what? In that scenario, that getaway driver is just as guilty as the person going in with the guns into the bank. And the driver may say, “I didn’t even go in. I didn’t even go into the bank.” But of course, there was a plan. Obviously, that driver aided them, aided, encouraged, and it was with the intent if the facts were all true, that, that money is taken from that bank. So that getaway driver is called a principle of the crime just as much as the person that went in with the bank.
So again, it’s aiding, promoting, and encouraging that crime. So obviously the getaway driver is aiding in the crime because the bank robbers aren’t going to have to run away on foot. They have somebody waiting for them. So again, the law counts them all equally guilty. Now, there is an exception to that as there is with most things, and the exception is kind of called merely standing by.
So even with the knowledge that other people may commit a crime, if you are somewhere near and you are just standing by and you don’t aid, encourage or do anything at all to help that crime be committed, then you would not be guilty. You would be just merely standing by. To be guilty of a crime, of course, you have to have some level of participation.
So again, if you can show you’re merely standing by, you would be found not guilty. And again, all of these are always going to be fact issues. It’s not going to be a judge deciding this. If these cases are taken to trial, to a jury trial, the state under this aiding and abetting would try to prove that this defendant did something to encourage, aid, promote, or do something to help the crime.
And if you’re the defendant, you would say, “All of a sudden I knew they were going to do it and I had nothing to do with it. I backed away. I backed off. I had nothing to do with it.” And then a jury decides, well, what’s the truth? And then a verdict is rendered. So if you have any questions about this, reach out to me, an Oklahoma criminal defense lawyer, Stuart Ericson at wagonerlawyer.com.
