State v. Bridges case brief

 

State v. Bridges: The liability of a co-conspirator under the objective standard of reasonable foreseeability would be broader then that of an accomplice where the defendant must actually foresee and intend the result of his or her acts. The court concludes that a co-conspirator may be liable for the commission of substantive criminal acts that are not within the scope of the conspiracy if they are reasonably foreseeable as the necessary or natural consequence of the conspiracy. From the evidence presented, a jury could finds a reasonably foreseeable and natural consequence of their conspiracy being murder.

• In NJ – conspiracy is Luperallo with Negligence! But accomplice liability in NJ is not Luperallo! Why the broader standard for conspiracy? If you get to a place where you are agreeing with some to commit a crime, you should be thinking about what is going to happen. As opposed to an accomplice liability which can be more spur of the moment. If we think about it this way, conspiracy is a lot like felony murder – just committing the crime together as opposed to helping to commit the crime.