Complicity, Cause and Blame: A Study in the Interpretation of Doctrine
This is a study of a body of doctrine, the doctrine of complicity, that determines when one person is liable for a crime committed by another. Doctrine may be studied in several ways depending on the question asked. One question asks what the doctrine is in some jurisdiction. This is the question primarily addressed by treatise writers. Another question asks whether the doctrine serves the purposes of the law and, to the extent it does not, how it should be altered. This is the question addressed by those engaged in revising the law. I do not mean that these questions can be answered independently of one another, only that they are different questions. In any event, the question this study addresses is distinguishable from both. It asks how the doctrine of complicity can best be interpreted as a coherent concept. This entails articulating the relationships between different parts of complicity...