## Facts

- Branko Bogdanov and three women entered a warehouse clothing store in Fort Collins, Colorado.
- Two women distracted sales clerks while Bogdanov and a third woman positioned near the office door; Bogdanov held up clothing as the third woman slipped into the office and exited shortly thereafter.
- The group left together; when an employee called out, they ran to a car driven by Bogdanov and sped away.
- An employee recorded the license plate number and discovered five bank bags missing from a safe in the office.
- The missing deposits contained approximately $2,200 in cash, $1,100 in checks, and loose change.
- Bogdanov was charged and convicted of second-degree burglary (warehouse) and theft under a complicity theory, and also convicted of conspiracy to commit theft.
- Over objection, the trial court gave the standard pattern instruction stating that a person is legally accountable as a principal if, with intent to promote or facilitate the offense, the person aids, abets, advises, or encourages another in planning or committing it.

## Issues

1. Whether the pattern complicity jury instruction violated due process by allegedly permitting conviction without requiring the jury to find the defendant possessed the culpable mental state required for the underlying offenses.

## Decision

- The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the judgment upholding Bogdanov’s convictions.
- The court held the pattern complicity instruction did not violate due process.
- The court reasoned that complicity is a theory of principal liability, not a separate substantive offense, and the instruction required intent to promote or facilitate the underlying crime.
- Reading the complicity instruction together with the separate instructions defining burglary and theft (including their mental-state elements), the instructions as a whole required the prosecution to prove every element beyond a reasonable doubt.
- The court rejected the claim that the instruction created vicarious liability based on mere association or presence or otherwise reduced the prosecution’s burden.

## Legal Principles

- Complicity in Colorado is a theory of liability under which a defendant may be held legally accountable as a principal for another’s offense when the defendant, with intent to promote or facilitate the offense, aids, abets, advises, or encourages its planning or commission.
- A complicity instruction must be evaluated in conjunction with the instructions defining the substantive offenses; the charge is sufficient if, taken as a whole, it requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the underlying offense and the defendant’s intentional assistance.
- Due process is satisfied when jury instructions do not create presumptions, do not permit conviction based solely on presence or association, and do not relieve the prosecution of proving each element beyond a reasonable doubt.

## Conclusion

The court upheld the standard complicity instruction because it required an intent to promote or facilitate the offense and, when read with the substantive burglary and theft instructions, did not lessen the prosecution’s burden to prove all elements beyond a reasonable doubt.


Bogdanov v. People, 941 P.2d 247 (Colo. 1997)