Odger's English Common Law

134 DIFFERENT KINDS OF CRIMES AND CRIMINALS.
As a rule, a principal in the second degree is present at or
near the place where the crime is being committed, aiding
and abetting in its commission. Accessories are never present
at the actual commission of the crime. Any one who incites,
counsels, procures or commands another to commit a felony
is an accessory before the fact to that felony, if it be com-
mitted, and is guilty of felony and punishable in all respects
as the principal felon. If A. instigates B. to commit a crime,
and B. commits a different and independent crime, A. is not
liable. But if B. commits the crime suggested in a different
way, or if the crime which B. in fact commits is a natural or
probable consequence of his attempt to carry out A.'s orders
or suggestion, then A. is an accessory before the fact to the
crime actually committed. If, however, after instigating B.
to commit a crime A. changes his mind and countermands
his orders, he is not liable for any crime which B. commits
after the countermand has reached him.
A felony must be actually committed, or there cannot be
any accessories. But to incite or solicit another to commit
any crime is in itself a misdemeanour, whether that other
consents or refuses to do what he is asked to do. 1 And if
two or more agree together to commit any crime, all are
guilty of the misdemeanour of conspiracy, whether the crime
be committed or not.
A. incites B. to kill 0. by poisoning him. B. kills C. by shooting him.
A. is an accessory before the fact to the murder of C.
A. incites B. to kill 0. B. by mistake kills D. A. is not responsible
for the death of D. unless he in some way conduced to the mistake.
A. incites B. to kill C, a person unknown to B. A. describes C. to B.
and tells him where he will probably find C. at a certain hour. B. goes
to that place at that hour and kills D., who answers to the description
which A. gave of C. A. is an accessory before the fact to the death of D.
A. incites B. to rob C, whom A. knows to be a strong and courageous
man. B. attacks C, and a desperate struggle ensues, in which B. eventually
kills C. A. is accessory before the fact to the murder of C, if the jury are
satisfied that the struggle and the fatal blow were natural consequences,
which A. should have anticipated, of the attempt to rob C.
A. incited B. to kill his (B.'s) wife, and advised him to do so by means
of a poisoned apple. B. gave his wife a poisoned apple ; she gave it in
1 B. v. Biggins (1801), 2 East, 5 ; B. v. Phttipp? (1805), 6 East, 464.