The defendant in State v. Meadows, No. COA24-149 (N.C. Ct. App. May 7, 2025), was convicted of murder based on evidence that he and two other men broke into the victim’s home and shot the victim to death. Despite evidence that the defendant was not alone, the trial court refused to instruct on acting in concert. During closing argument, however, the prosecutor told the jury that the State need not prove the defendant “actually fired the shot that actually killed the victim. If he committed one act that contributed to the victim’s death, he is just as guilty as everybody else.” This argument, the Court of Appeals said, was improper. This post examines the opinion in Meadows.
acting in concert
Acting Indirectly
I was recently updating a list of review questions for a course on larceny offenses when I came across a version of this scenario: a woman tells her friend that she left one of her items behind in the store and asks the friend to go retrieve it for her, but in fact the woman never purchased it. If the friend goes back and gets it, what’s the crime and who gets charged?
The question usually prompts a good discussion about conventional charging options like conspiracy, acting in concert, aiding and abetting, or being an accessory. Phil Dixon wrote this helpful post summarizing the most common theories of principal liability and their pleading requirements, but none of those are a perfect fit for these facts. The woman wasn’t present at the scene and didn’t personally take the item, and the friend was unaware of what was happening so there was no common purpose or criminal intent on her part.
I think the best answer is the rarely mentioned “other” theory of principal liability we have in North Carolina: Acting Indirectly, also known as the Innocent Agent doctrine.
Pleading General Crimes and Theories of Liability
Questions frequently arise about the requirements to charge the various types of general crimes like attempt, conspiracy, and accessory. A related question is whether the theory of liability, such as acting in concert or aiding and abetting, must be specifically pled. For defenders new to felony work, it can come as an unwelcome surprise to discover the jury is being instructed on an unexpected theory not identified in the pleading. This post lays out the basics for pleading general crimes and theories of liability of participants in the crime and links to the jury instructions for each.