On September 7, 1876, eight members of the James-Younger gang attempted to rob the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota. Three of the gang members entered the bank. The other five positioned themselves outside the bank, two at the door and three a short distance away.
The robbery did not go as planned. The cashier, Joseph Heywood, refused to open the safe. Outside, citizens became suspicious of the men guarding the door. The gang members outside the bank fired in the air to clear the streets and things quickly spun out of control. A gun battle broke out between the townspeople of Northfield and the James-Younger gang.
Four men died that day. Heywood and another innocent civilian, Nicholas Gustafson, were killed along with two members of the gang. Most of the rest of the gang members who escaped were wounded. Some of the gang members were caught and prosecuted for murder, but it is not known who shot Heywood and Gustafson.
How could they prosecute someone for murder if they did not know who shot the victims? The answer lies in a legal doctrine we call “accomplice liability.” An accomplice is a person who helps another commit a crime. The accomplice does not participate in the actual crime, but assists the perpetrator in some fashion. An accomplice can be prosecuted for the actual crime and is subject to the same penalties as those who committed the offense.
For example, in a bank robbery the individual who points the gun at the teller and takes money has committed the offense of aggravated robbery. A “lookout” posted outside the door or a “wheelman” waiting in a getaway car do not participate in the robbery, but they are accomplices and can be held liable for the robbery.
Accomplices are liable not just for the planned crime, however.
An accomplice is also liable for unplanned crimes if they were reasonably foreseeable. As it is foreseeable that a bank cashier might resist or refuse to cooperate even when threatened with a weapon, it is also foreseeable that the cashier might be shot and killed. Accordingly, all of the gang members who participated in the attempted robbery in Northfield could have been prosecuted for murder.
Minnesota’s accomplice liability statute (Section 609.05) provides that “a person is criminally liable for a crime committed by another if the person intentionally aids, advises, hires, counsels, or conspires with or otherwise procures the other to commit the crime.”
We don’t see many bank robberies committed by gangs on horseback any more, but prosecutors in Minnesota regularly charge offenders under our accomplice liability statute. Just in the last couple of months I have handled cases in which offenders were charged with accomplice liability for assault and various property offenses.
Offenders charged with accomplice liability often claim that they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. While that is usually true, it is also usually the case that the offender knowingly and willingly put themselves into that bad situation.
Although some of its members survived and formed new criminal liaisons, the failed Northfield Bank robbery marked the end of the James-Younger gang. The infamous failure of the raid is celebrated every year in Northfield as “Defeat of Jesse James Days.” Whether or not the gang’s motto was “all for one, and one for all,” the law of accomplice liability unites those who choose to participate in a crime.
As always, remember it is your court.
Rasmussen is a district court judge in the Ninth Judicial District. He is chambered in Clearwater County and works primarily in Clearwater and Hubbard counties. His e-mail address is: paul.rasmussen@courts.state.mn.us
