Joint Enterprise

Abstract

All forms of secondary liability require justification as an exception to the rule that one should not be held criminally liable for the actions of another. Such a justification is particularly difficult to find for parasitic accessory liability, as distinguished from other forms of joint enterprise. Although the doctrine has significant practical benefits, there remain problems with the same kind of liability being imposed on both principal and secondary offenders. This uniform imposition of liability is the primary problem with the joint enterprise doctrine in its current form, and the importance of the type of liability imposed means that differences in sentence are an inadequate way of accounting for the differences in culpability between principal and secondary offenders.