In the small, gossipy towns of Texas, people are painfully familiar with the concept of guilt by association. If one of your distant relatives offended someone or committed a social faux past years ago, everyone continues to remind you of it, every chance they get. You can solve this problem by moving to the big city and giving no thought to the jealous haters back home except when you publish new social media posts about your recent successes, and you think of how mad they will be. Unfortunately, the consequences of guilt by association are more serious in a court of law. The laws of Texas hold that you are just as guilty if you help someone commit a crime as you would be if you had been the one who stole the money from someone else’s house or entered the credit card number online to buy illegal drugs. Of course, you cannot be convicted of helping someone commit a crime unless the prosecution can persuade the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that you helped someone else commit the crime, instead of merely being in the vicinity of the perpetrator during or shortly before or after the crime.
If you are facing charges for acting as an accomplice to a crime, contact a Texas criminal defense lawyer.
You Can Get 100 Percent of the Penalty Even If All You Did Was Act as a Lookout
Accomplice liability means that a person who helps someone commit a crime, known as the accomplice, is guilty of the same charges as the person who personally committed the main criminal action, known as the principal. These are some actions that count as acting as an accomplice:
● Giving a weapon to the principal, knowing that the principal intended to use it to commit a violent crime
● Helping the principal dispose of contraband
● Acting as a lookout and warning the principal if witnesses were approaching the scene of the crime
● Being a getaway driver after a crime
Defenses to Charges of Acting as an Accomplice
You are only guilty of acting as an accomplice if the prosecution can prove that you knew about the crime and did not try to stop it. For example, you are an accomplice to robbery if you drove your cousin to his ex-friend’s apartment building and sat in the car while your cousin went upstairs and robbed his ex-friend at knifepoint. You are not an accomplice if you simply sat in the car until your cousin came back downstairs, but did not know what was going on in the apartment. You are also not an accomplice if, once your cousin went upstairs, you called the police and told them what was going on, and then drove away before the police arrested your cousin.
Contact the Law Office of Patrick J. McLain, PLLC, About Criminal Defense Cases
A Dallas criminal defense lawyer can help you fight charges of acting as an accomplice to a crime. Contact the Law Office of Patrick J. McLain, PLLC in Dallas, Texas to discuss your case.