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JUSTICE OF THE PEACE.

ACCESSORIES..

AN accessory is he who is not the chief actor in the offence, nor present at its performance, but is some way con cerned therein, either before or after the fact committed. ·

In high treason there are no accessories, but all are prin cipals. The same acts that make a man accessory in felony, make him a principal in high treason, upon account of the heinousness of the crime.'

In petit treason, murder, and felonies with or without benefit of clergy, there may be accessories: except only in those offences, which by judgment of law, are sudden and unpremeditated, as manslaughter and the like; which therefore cannot have any accessories before or after the fact. So, too, in petit larceny, and in all crimes under the degree of felony, there are no accessories either before or after the fact; but all persons concerned therein, if guilty at all, are principals: the same rule holding with regard to the highest and lowest of fences, though upon different reasons.

An accessory cannot be guilty of a higher crime than his principal; being only punished, as a partaker of his guilt. So that if a servant instigates a stranger to kill his master, this being murder in the stranger as principal, of course the servant is accessory only to the crime of murder; though had he been present and assisting, he would have been guilty as principal of petit treason, and the stranger of murder.

An accessory before the fact, is one, who being absent at the time of the crime committed, doth yet procure, counsel, or command another to commit a crime. Herein absence is necessary to make an accessory; for, if such procurer, or the like, be present, he is guilty of the crime as principal. Whoever procureth a felony to be committed, though it be by the intervention of a third person, is an accessory before the fact. He who in anywise commands or counsels another to commit

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an unlawful act, is accessory to all that ensues upon that un lawful act; but is not accessory to any act distinct from the other. As if A commands B to beat C, and B beats him so that he dies, B is guilty of murder as principal, and A as accessory. But if A commands B to burn P's house, and he, in so doing, commits a robbery; now A, though accessory to the burning, is not accessory to the robbery, for that is a thing of a distinct and unconsequential nature. But if the felony committed be the same in substance with that which is commanded, and only varying in some uncircumstantial matters; as if, upon a command to poison A, he is stabbed or shot, and dies, the commander is still accessory to the murder, for the substance of the thing commanded was the death of A, and the manner of its execution is a mere collateral circumstance.

An accessory after the fact may be, where a person, knowing a felony to have been committed, receives, relieves, comforts, or assists the felon. Therefore, to make an accessory after the fact, it is in the first place requisite, that he knows of the felony committed. In the next place, he must receive, relieve, comfort, or assist him. And generally, any assistance whatever given to a felon, to hinder his being apprehended, tried, or suffering punishment, makes the assister an accessory. As furnishing him with a horse to escape his pursuer, money or victuals to support him, a house or other shelter to conceal him, or open force or violence to rescue or protect him. So likewise, to convey instruments to a felon to enable him to break jail, or to bribe the jailor to let him escape, makes a man accessory to the felony. But to relieve a felon in jail with clothes or other necessaries, is no offence; for the crime imputable to this species of accessory is the hindrance of public justice, by assisting the felon to escape the vengeance of the law. To buy or receive stolen goods, knowing them to be stolen, falls under none of these descriptions; it was therefore, at common law, a mere misdemeanor, and made not the receiver accessory to the theft, because he received the goods only, and not the felon. But now by act of 1797, c. 19, if any person shall receive or buy any property that shall be feloniously stolen or taken from other person, knowing the same to be stolen; or shall harbor or conceal any such felon, knowing him, her, or them to be so, such person or persons shall be taken and received as accessories to said felony, and may be prosecuted as for a misdemeanor, and punished by a fine not exceeding fifty pounds, and corporal punishment not exceeding thirty-nine lashes, or standing in the pillory not exceeding two hours, although the principal felon be not before convicted of said felony; which

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shall operate as a bar, and prevent the offender from being punished as accessory, if such principal felon shall be afterwards taken and convicted: but nothing in this act shall prevent accessories to felonies, from being prosecuted and punished as heretofore directed by law.

The felony must be complete at the time of the assistance given, else it makes not the assistant an accessory. As if one wounds another mortally, and after the wound given, but before death ensues, a person assists or relieves the delinquent, this does not make him accessory to the homicide; for, until death ensues there is no felony committed. But so strict is the law where a felony is actually complete, in order to do effectual justice, that the nearest relations are not suffered to aid or receive one another. If the parent assists his child or the child his parent, if the brother receives his brother, the master his servant or the servant his master, or even if the husband receives his wife, who have any of them committed a felony, the receivers become accessories after the fact. But a wife cannot become accessory by the receipt and concealment of her. husband, for she is presumed to act under his coercion, and therefore she is not bound, neither ought she to discover him.

No one shall be adjudged a principal in any common trespass or inferior crime of the like nature, for barely receiving, comforting, and concealing the offender, though he know him to have been guilty, and that there is a warrant out against him, which by reason of such concealment, cannot be executed. And if he cannot be punished as a principal, he cannot be punished as an accessory; because in such offences, all who are punished as partakers of the guilt of him who did the fact, must be punished as principals in it, or not at all. Yet, if a man, knowing that there is a warrant against such offender, advise and persuade him to absent himself, perhaps he may be indictable for a contempt of the law, in hindering the due course of justice.

The general rule of the ancient law is, that accessories shall suffer the same punishment as their principals; if one be liable to death, the other is also. But now, by the statutes relating to the benefit of clergy, a distinction is made between them: accessories after the fact being still allowed the benefit of clergy in all cases, that is, they shall not be hanged upon the first conviction; but this is denied to the principals, and accessories before the fact, in many cases, as in petit treason, murder, robbery, wilful burning, &c. See Bail.

The accessory as such cannot be arraigned till the principal is attainted; that is, till judgment has passed against him:

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