Parties To Crime Essay

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Parties To A Crime
A crime is any act or omission of duty resulting in harm to society that is punishable by the state. Often there is more than one participant in a crime, including cooperation in the physical act or assistance before and after. In New South Wales, the roles of people in a party conducting a crime are specified in laws about joint criminal enterprise. A joint criminal enterprise is one in which two or more people conduct criminal activity with a common objective. All parties are held equally criminally accountable even if some were more actively involved than others. All participants are punishable by court and are referred to as the parties to a crime. There are four distinguishable parties to a crime which are classified according to their role in the execution of the crime. Parties to a crime can be classified as:
1. Principal in the first degree
2. Principal in the …show more content…

The principal in the first degree would be the person that committed the whole or parts of the physical elements of the crime. In order to be prosecuted, it would be a necessity to prove that the principal in the first degree committed the actus reus with the adequate mens rea.
Example: if person A used a gun to rob a store, he would be the principal in the first degree as he committed the crime himself or herself.
In the case Cooper v Regina [2011] NSWCCA 258, the appellant, Bradley Cooper was arraigned on an indictment that on the 22 March 2003, he did murder Dale Kevin Muldoon. In this case, Cooper would be the principal in the first degree as he delivered all blows to the head of the deceased and therefore was solely responsible for the murder.
Though, under a variant of the definition, a person can be charged as a principal in the first degree if they possess the mens rea but causes an innocent person to perform the physical

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