An act of the Principal Offender as consequence of Cumulative Acts of accomplices

In the article the author analyzed the views of scientists on the issue of presence of the necessary causal relationship between an act of the principal offender and acts of the head for crime, the abettor and the aider. The author substantiated that acts of accomplices only in case of interaction have feature of cause that is sufficient for occurrence of criminal result, namely only in their accumulation they are sufficient causes. In crimes with formally actus reus in complicity with distribution of roles or in form of the co-principal offenders the acts of all accomplices on the basis of their interaction become sufficient cause for occurrence of one criminal result – an act which forms objective side of actus reus committed in complicity. In crimes with materially actus reus they become sufficient cause for occurrence of two criminal results – an act which forms objective side of actus reus committed in complicity and socially-dangerous consequence that caused by this act. Considering that an act which forms objective side of actus reus committed in complicity achieves only by interaction of efforts of all accomplices an act of the head for crime, the abettor and the aider always is mediate and insufficient cause because it only provides its committing, while an act of the principal offender is immediate but also insufficient cause because it although forms objective side of actus reus but due to contribution that provided by interaction of efforts of other accomplices. The author analyzed complicity as system and istinguished
its relatively independent parts – subsystems. The author suggested consider as the subsystem of the system of causation – complicity with distribution of roles between accomplices the interaction of the co-principal offenders in case of participation in commission of a crime in conjunction with several co-principal offenders also accomplices that perform other roles (the head for crime, the abettor and the aider). As well the author suggested distinguished the subsystem of the co-principal offenders depending on intermediate goal that subsystem achieves, namely performance of corresponding function.