HBO is showing my favorite early 1990s action/suspense/detective film, The Fugitive, and it seems that Dr. Richard Kimball relies on plenty of help from his friends while he’s on the lam. This is, obviously, a clear case of his friends aiding and abetting a wanted felon. They can do time for that, unless I’m mistaken.
At the end of the show, Kimball is exonerated and the real criminals are found out. But this doesn’t entirely clear his friends, does it? After all, they knew he was a criminal at the time they helped him, and they later lied to law enforcement when they came around to question them. Aiding and abetting and obstruction of justice.
So, do these crimes disappear when the convict is cleared?
I seem to recall that people comvicted of attempting to escape prison and later exonerated were still held the length of their added escape sentence, so it seems as though people who knowingly gave aid to convicted felons would still be held responsible, although my memory on this could be incorrect.
Those who assisted the criminal are still guilty. It’s their actions which are at issue. The innocence of the man they helped is completely immaterial as far as the law goes-- at the time of the action the person they assisted was a criminal. That he was later exhonorated is not an appealable issue. There must be an actual error in the trial for an appeal, or a claim of “actual innocence”, neither of which applies.
No, they are only guilty after a jury convicts them. And any jury is likely to give strong consideration to the fact that the person they aided was in fact wrongfully convicted, even if it’s legally “immaterial”.
That’s one of the advantages of a jury system – jurors can use their common sense to arrive at a ‘just’ verdict, while judges & lawyers pay attention to legal precedents.
I’m no lawyer, but it sounds like “aiding and abetting” involves fairly substantial participation in someone else’s crime, not just failing to turn in an old friend. (Otherwise, every mother who tells the cops that she doesn’t know where they can find her wayward son would go away on felony charges.) There are different charges for things like lying to investigators and concealing evidence, and even then the prosecution, I believe, would have to prove that the cops were rightfully entitled to the information–which might be hard to do after it became known that they had framed an innocent man.
I’m sorry-- I thought from the OP that the conviction for abetting had already occurred before the exhoneration of the criminal they helped. Perhaps I misunderstood the premise.
You’re entrirely right-- the jury would most likely take into consideration that the accused was actually innocent. I, as a jury member, would be tempted to nullify on this issue, even though the defendants would be technically guilty.
First, exoneration is spelled without an h. (I looked it up in an online dictionary. It’s a hard word to spell.)
Second, yes, the jury would indeed be hearing their cases after Dr. Kimball’s exoneration. If you have seen the show, you could imagine their trials taking place after the events of the movie, when it’s clear who really killed Mrs. Kimball.
Third, it seems that my question has been answered. The people would be convictable of something (if not aiding and abetting, as per testride’s cite), and Dr. Kimball’s status during their trials wouldn’t make any difference.
Finally, t-bonham@scc.net raises a good point, and points out a looseness in my own usage of the language: The jury convicts, and it’s wrong to say someone is guilty if he has not been convicted by a jury of his peers. In my own defense, I was wondering if a jury could interpret the facts to bring in a guilty verdict given the story as presented in the movie.
(I looked it up in an online dictionary. It’s a hard word to spell.)