Criminal Authorship and Participation: Theories and Definitions

Objective – Formal: The author is the one who executes the criminal act, and a participant is one who facilitates the act (This is the solution in Argentina).

Objective – Materialist: The difference between authorship and participation is found by applying the theory of equivalence of conditions. The author is the one who provides a condition for the illicit result without which it would not have occurred. Participation is any collaboration that causes the unlawful result.

Subjective: Both the author and the participant are involved in the crime, but the distinction is based on their intent. The author wants to own the event, while a participant wants to cooperate with the criminal act of another.

Definitions of Criminal Roles

Participation: Refers to any active intervention in the crime, regardless of the degree of involvement (including the author).

Author: Anyone who performs the action described by the type of crime.

Co-author: In our legal system, a co-author can be:

• Several perpetrators executing a common action (total), such as the theft of a container with two handles, where each agent takes one.
• Sharing in a specific sense in the action of an author, taking part in the execution of an activity (or omission) that makes the action enter the type. This occurs in crimes where co-authorship is possible without becoming the main author.

Perpetrator: The typical action is carried out using an unimpeachable person or a defendant acting under duress or error. This includes situations where the error was raised by the perpetrator or they took advantage of an existing mistake. It also includes coercion or taking advantage of a situation of constraint in special crimes, or those in which the type requires a special quality to the author. The quality must be met by the perpetrator, not the executor of the action.

Criminal Involvement

A participant is anyone involved objectively (through action or omission) and subjectively by the fact that they are not the author. Criminal involvement occurs when several people are active participants in the same offense (community in fact), either through mutual aid or unilateral action (intentional convergence).

Required Cooperation: Participants provide the author with assistance or cooperation without which the crime could not have been committed. This presupposes an agreement. For example, a pharmacist giving poison to someone to kill another.

Simple Cooperation: Participants provide aid and promises further meeting prior to the crime. For example, someone who drives the offender’s getaway car.