## Facts

- Laurie Wheeler lived with her common-law husband, Mitchell Anderson, in a Colorado Springs triplex; the victim, Timothy Bothun, lived in another unit.
- After a dispute involving a babysitter and Bothun, Wheeler and Bothun argued and struck each other.
- When Anderson returned, he fought with Bothun; the fight ended, and each pair returned to their respective apartments.
- Anderson soon entered Bothun’s apartment holding a knife and threatened Bothun; Wheeler followed.
- During a renewed fight, Anderson ended up on the floor with Bothun on top of him; Wheeler jumped on Bothun’s back and pulled his head back by his hair.
- A stab wound was inflicted with Anderson’s knife; Bothun died from the wound.
- The prosecution proceeded on a complicity theory; the jury received instructions on homicide offenses and a standard complicity instruction.
- The jury convicted Wheeler of criminally negligent homicide as a complicitor.
- The trial court granted Wheeler’s post-verdict motion for judgment of acquittal, concluding that “criminally negligent homicide by a complicitor” is not a cognizable offense because it would require knowing participation in an unintentional killing.
- The People appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether Colorado law permits a conviction for criminally negligent homicide under a theory of complicity.

## Decision

- The Colorado Supreme Court reversed the judgment of acquittal and remanded with directions to reinstate the jury’s verdict.
- The court held that criminally negligent homicide is legally cognizable under complicity principles.
- The court rejected the trial court’s view that complicity requires knowledge or intent as to the homicide result.
- The court concluded the verdict was legally consistent because complicity intent is directed to aiding the principal’s conduct that constitutes the offense.

## Legal Principles

- Complicity is not a separate crime; it is a theory of accountability by which a defendant may be convicted of the substantive offense committed by another.
- For complicity, the required intent is to aid, abet, advise, or encourage the principal’s conduct that constitutes the offense; it need not be intent (or knowledge) that a specific result will occur.
- Criminally negligent homicide requires causing death by criminal negligence, defined as failure to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk.
- An accomplice can intentionally further the principal’s dangerous conduct while the principal’s culpability for the resulting death is based on criminal negligence; there is no logical contradiction between the accomplice’s intent to assist conduct and the offense’s negligence-based result element.
- Evidence that the defendant joined and assisted the assaultive conduct while the principal wielded a knife can support complicity liability for criminally negligent homicide.

## Conclusion

Colorado law permits complicity liability for criminally negligent homicide when the defendant intentionally aids or encourages the principal’s conduct that, as carried out, satisfies the elements of that negligence-based homicide offense, even though the death itself is not an intended result.


People v. Wheeler, 772 P.2d 101 (Colo. 1989)