Also known as: acquired immune deficiency syndrome · HIV/AIDS · acquired immunodeficiency syndrome
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
Assistance provided to another person in planning or committing a criminal offense. The assistance may take the form of physical aid, encouragement, or material support that facilitates the principal actor's conduct.
Albert Allen stood at the desk while Alexandra Armstrong forged the judge's signature on court documents. Allen cut and pasted official letterhead onto the papers at the exact moment Armstrong completed the forgery. Because Allen provided direct physical assistance while remaining at the scene, he qualifies as a principal in the second degree.
Adam Anderson directed Anika Anand to dump hazardous waste at an unpermitted site and supplied her with a map of back roads plus instructions for falsifying manifests. Anderson's actions supplied both the plan and the means for Anand to carry out the disposal over multiple weeks. The purposeful aid in planning and committing the offense makes Anderson an accomplice.
Aaron Adams told Alan Ackerman days earlier that shortcuts on paperwork would go undetected if speed was needed. Adams remained away from the office when Ackerman forged the settlement order. The earlier encouragement without presence at the act classifies Adams as an accessory before the fact.
Avalon Pharmaceuticals supplied a terminally ill patient with a prescription that the patient later used in a suicide attempt. The company's knowing provision of the means directly facilitated the act. Liability attaches because the assistance caused the attempted suicide.
Washington has prohibited assisting suicide since its territorial days. In 1854, the first Territorial Legislature outlawed assisting another in the commission of self-murder. The current statute, Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060, provides that a person is guilty of promoting a suicide attempt when he knowingly causes or aids another person to attempt suicide, and classifies it as a class C felony punishable by up to five years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. Washington's Natural Death Act, enacted in 1979, states that the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment at a patient's direction shall not constitute a suicide, but the state has consistently rejected efforts to legalize physician-assisted suicide, including a 1991 ballot initiative defeated by voters. The respondents in this case are four physicians who practice in Washington and treat terminally ill patients, three terminally ill patients who sought to end their lives with physician assistance and have since died, and Compassion in Dying, a nonprofit organization that counsels people considering physician-assisted suicide. The physicians declared that they would assist their patients in ending their lives if not for the assisted-suicide ban. Petitioners are the State of Washington and its Attorney General. In January 1994, the respondents filed this action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. They sought a declaration that Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060 is unconstitutional on its face and an injunction against its enforcement. The District Court held that the statute was unconstitutional. A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed that decision, but the full court sitting en banc reversed the panel and affirmed the District Court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case.
View caseAlliance Holdings submitted detailed legislative history materials that revealed the rationale behind a filled-milk statute. The submission supplied concrete facts supporting the legislature's judgment. The materials aided the court in evaluating whether the regulation rested on a rational basis.
In March 1923, Congress enacted the Filled Milk Act. The statute prohibits the shipment in interstate commerce of skimmed milk compounded with any fat or oil other than milk fat so as to resemble milk or cream. Carolene Products Company was indicted for the shipment in interstate commerce of packages of Milnut. Milnut is a compound of condensed skimmed milk and coconut oil made in imitation or semblance of condensed milk or cream. The United States indicted Carolene Products in the district court for the southern district of Illinois for violation of the Act by the shipment in interstate commerce of packages of Milnut. The indictment stated in the words of the statute that Milnut is an adulterated article of food injurious to the public health. It further stated that Milnut is not a prepared food product of the type excepted from the prohibition of the Act. The trial court sustained a demurrer to the indictment on the authority of an earlier case in the same court. The case was brought to the Supreme Court on appeal under the Criminal Appeals Act of March 2, 1907. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has meanwhile upheld the Filled Milk Act as an appropriate exercise of the commerce power in a separate case. Prior to passage of the Act, Congress held committee hearings. Eminent scientists and health experts testified during those hearings. An extensive investigation was made of the commerce in milk compounds in which vegetable oils have been substituted for natural milk fat. The investigation also examined the effect upon the public health of the use of such compounds as a food substitute for milk. The conclusions drawn from evidence presented at the hearings were embodied in reports of the House Committee on Agriculture and the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. Carolene Products assailed the statute as beyond the power of Congress over interstate commerce. It also complained that the statute denies equal protection of the laws and deprives it of its property without due process of law in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The challenge focused particularly on the statute's purportedly binding and conclusive legislative declaration that the product is an adulterated article of food injurious to the public health.
View caseApex Dynamics provided state-funded textbooks and equipment to religious schools under a program that also required recipients to affirm a government viewpoint. The aid extended beyond the funded program into the organization's independent speech. The condition linking the assistance to compelled affirmation raised First Amendment concerns.
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View caseA principal in the second degree must be present at the scene while providing aid. An accessory before the fact provides aid or encouragement but is absent when the crime occurs. Presence at the moment of the offense is the key dividing line under common law categories.
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Traditional common law requires actual physical presence at the scene. Electronic participation from a distant location does not meet the presence element even if it allows real-time commands. The defendant therefore remains an accessory before the fact rather than a principal in the second degree.
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A person becomes an accomplice by aiding or agreeing to aid another in planning or committing the offense with the purpose of promoting or facilitating it. Supplying maps, instructions, or credentials that enable the crime satisfies the aiding element. The purposeful mental state must accompany the assistance.
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…in this case, Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060, provides: “(1) A person is guilty of promoting suicide when he knowingly causes or aids another person to attempt suicide. (2) Promoting suicide is a class C felony.” The plaintiffs assert that the statute violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. They…