Getaway driver is key player in criminal act

Juvenile Justice Digest, Apr 18, 2003

9th Circuit

This case requires the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to distinguish between "accessory after the fact" and "assisting an offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension."

One who acts as an accessory after the fact, the court explains, does not participate in the commission of the primary offense. Instead, an accessory provides assistance to the offender by helping him to avoid apprehension or prosecution after he has already committed an offense.

The underlying offense in this case is the murder of a DEA confidential informant who investigated and prosecuted cocaine trafficking.

Defendant Freddie Taylor and another person were known to have made threats against the informant in the week before her murder.

Eyewitnesses testified that Taylor drove the car from which the fatal bullets were fired.

When someone drives a getaway car, the court said, that person satisfies the plain language of the after-the-fact statute. The law limits the punishment for accessories to no more than half of the maximum amount prescribed for the underlying offense.

In the court's opinion, everybody who was a principal or an accomplice to the crime could also be charged with being an accessory after the fact because they don't turn themselves in or report the other people with whom they acted.

The 9th circuit court notes that the escape phase of a crime is part of the commission of a crime.

Taylor by driving the getaway car participated in the escape phase of the underlying crime, making him guilty of aiding and abetting.

Taylor, the court concluded, is an offender punishable as a principal to the murder.

Under the applicable statute, "whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal."

Inf.: U.S. v. Taylor, 01-10104, 9th Circ., March 20.