The Concept of Complicity and Its Legal Significance
An accusation often concerns several persons at once, and the central category here becomes complicity: under the law, complicity in a crime means the deliberate joint participation of two or more persons in the commission of an intentional crime. This definition combines two necessary elements — the number of participants and intent: random, uncoordinated acts do not create complicity, and the joint commission of an unintentional crime is likewise not covered by this institute. In accomplice cases the defence's first task is precisely to establish these boundaries: who acted, in what role and with what intent, since from this follows both the fact of responsibility, its degree and the frame of the qualification — and an error at this first step contaminates the entire accusation.
Types of Accomplices and Their Distinction
The law distinguishes the types of accomplices: an organizer is one who arranged the commission of the crime or directed its implementation, as well as one who created an organized group or directed it; an instigator is one who persuaded another person to commit an intentional crime; and an abettor is one who facilitated the commission of the crime. The role of the perpetrator stands separately: it is precisely that person who directly carries out the crime. The distinction is practical, because each form has its own evidentiary profile: organizing requires a system of acts, persuasion requires the establishment of influence and purpose, and facilitation requires a showing of the concrete act by which the person assisted the commission. An incorrect classification of the role weakens the accusation's structure, so the defence builds a detailed factual analysis here and tests each element of the alleged role against the material of the case.
The Rule of Imposing Responsibility
The law builds responsibility for complicity on an individual foundation: the perpetrator and the accomplice bear criminal liability only for their own guilt, on the basis of a unified unlawful act, taking into account the character and degree of each person's participation in the commission of the crime. The liability of a co-perpetrator is determined by the corresponding article of the code without reference to the complicity article, while the liability of an organizer, instigator and abettor is determined by the corresponding article with reference to it. The rules of imputation of signs are likewise important: a sign characterizing the unlawful act is imputed to another perpetrator or accomplice if that person was aware of it, while a personal sign is imputed only to the perpetrator or accomplice whom it characterizes. The defence therefore examines, for every participant separately, what was within that person's knowledge and personality — because these boundaries decide whether a stricter or lighter frame of the article applies to the specific client.