ACCESSARY - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

ACCESSARYAuthored

The Law Mind • 1273 words

Definition

In criminal law, an accessary is a person who participates in a felony without being present at its commission and without acting as the principal offender. Guilt attaches not through direct action but through contribution — by command, advice, instigation, or concealment — either before or after the offense is carried out.

The term operates in two primary configurations:

1. Accessary before the fact: One who, being absent at the time the crime is committed, procures, counsels, commands, or otherwise incites another to commit it. The accessary before the fact is not present but is causally connected to the crime through prior involvement.

2. Accessary after the fact: One who, with knowledge that a felony has been committed, assists, harbors, or conceals the offender to prevent apprehension, conviction, or punishment. This form requires knowledge of the completed offense and an affirmative act of assistance.

Both forms are distinguished from the principal, who is the chief actor present at the commission of the offense. The distinction matters: at common law, an accessary could not be tried before the conviction of the principal, a rule with significant procedural consequences.

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Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Accompanying as a subordinate; additional; accessory; especially, uniting in, or contributing to, a crime, but not as chief actor."

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Accompanying, as a subordinate; additional; accessory; esp., uniting in, or contributing to, a crime, but not as chief actor."

The common usage tracks the legal meaning more closely than is typical, but there is a meaningful gap: in ordinary language, "accessary" functions primarily as an adjective meaning subordinate or supplementary. In law, it is a noun denoting a specific category of criminal participant with defined procedural consequences, including limitations on when and how prosecution may proceed. The legal term also carries a strict limitation to felonies — historically, there were no accessaries to misdemeanors; all participants in a misdemeanor were treated as principals.

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Common Confusion

ACCESSARY vs. ACCESSORY: These two spellings have been used interchangeably for centuries, and most modern jurisdictions have collapsed the distinction entirely. In older legal sources, "accessary" (spelled with an 'a') was the preferred legal spelling for the criminal-law participant, while "accessory" (spelled with an 'o') covered both the legal person and the general adjective sense. Researchers using historical corpora should not assume that a difference in spelling signals a difference in meaning, but should note that some careful older authorities did maintain the 'a' spelling as a deliberate marker of the technical legal term.

ACCESSARY vs. PRINCIPAL: An accessary is never present at the commission of the offense (or, in some formulations, does not take a direct hand in it). A principal — whether in the first or second degree — is. This distinction carried heavy procedural weight at common law and determined the order and conditions of prosecution. Modern statutes in most jurisdictions have abolished or substantially eroded this distinction.

ACCESSARY AFTER THE FACT vs. OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE: Contemporary criminal codes have largely replaced accessary-after-the-fact liability with obstruction of justice, harboring, or aiding-and-abetting statutes. These are not identical. Researchers working in modern sources should not assume the older category maps cleanly onto its modern successors.

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Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

1. Accessary before the fact — procures, counsels, commands, or instigates the offense without being present at its commission.

2. Accessary after the fact — with knowledge of a completed felony, assists the offender in escaping justice.

Note: Some historical authorities recognized a further distinction between an accessary at the fact (present but not a direct actor) and a principal in the second degree. This category was not uniformly treated as a true accessary, and the line between it and the principal in the second degree was contested.

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Why It Matters in Research

The term "accessary" is a navigational trap for researchers in historical sources. Several issues demand attention:

Spelling instability: Law Mind corpus sources use both "accessary" and "accessory" without consistent differentiation. A keyword search for one spelling will miss instances of the other. Search both forms when working in pre-20th-century materials.

Felony limitation: At common law, the accessary doctrine applied only to felonies. All participants in a misdemeanor were principals regardless of their degree of involvement. This rule appears explicitly in Bouvier and is implied in Blackstone. Researchers applying modern complicity frameworks to historical materials may misread outcomes if they overlook this limit.

Procedural dependency: The common-law rule that an accessary could not be convicted before the principal was a live procedural issue well into the 19th century. Historical records of criminal proceedings may reflect dismissals or delays rooted in this dependency, not in the merits of the underlying case.

Jurisdictional obsolescence: Most American jurisdictions abolished the formal accessary/principal distinction by statute during the 19th and 20th centuries, folding accessary-before-the-fact liability into aiding and abetting, and treating accessary-after-the-fact as a separate, lesser offense. The historical term will not appear in modern statutory indexes under this name; researchers must follow the legislative history forward.

Corpus connections: The term connects directly to entries on principal (first and second degree), complicity, abettor, particeps criminis, and harboring. Burrill's entry links accessary to the doctrine of accession in property law — an unrelated concept sharing a Latin root — which can generate false hits in undifferentiated corpus searches.

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Historical Dictionary Support

The five shelf sources agree on the core definition with minor variation. All define the accessary as a non-present participant in a felony who contributes before or after the fact. Burrill adds the Latin root (accessarius) and the particeps criminis equivalence, following Blackstone's Commentaries directly. Bouvier provides the most structured treatment, distinguishing before-the-fact and after-the-fact forms with reference to Hale's Pleas of the Crown, and noting the procedural rule that an accessary cannot be arraigned until the principal is convicted or has pleaded guilty.

Anderson's Dictionary introduces a useful precision: if a person does no more than procure, advise, or assist, he is an accessary; if he is present and does any of those same things, he becomes a principal in the second degree. This threshold — presence — is the operative line. Black's (both editions) tracks Blackstone closely and adds concealment as an independent basis for accessary liability.

What the historical dictionaries collectively understate: the extent to which the procedural dependency rule (no accessary conviction before principal conviction) created real injustice and was a primary driver of statutory reform. The dictionaries describe the doctrine; they do not foreground how often it immunized participants from prosecution when the principal died, fled, or was acquitted on technical grounds. Researchers should consult treatise literature for the reform history.

No significant divergences among sources on substantive definition. Variation is in organization and depth, not in substance.

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Jurisdictional Note

The formal accessary/principal distinction has been abolished by statute in the federal system and in most U.S. states. Federal law treats all who aid, abet, counsel, command, induce, or procure the commission of an offense as principals. England undertook similar reform through the Accessories and Abettors Act 1861. Researchers should determine the operative date of reform in any target jurisdiction before applying the common-law framework to case outcomes.

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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

Law Mind Encyclopedia — Parties to a Crime
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Complicity and Aiding and Abetting
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Principal (Criminal Law)

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ACCESSARYmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

In criminal law. Con- tributing to or aiding in the commission of a crime. One who, without being present at the commission of a felonious offense, be- comes guilty of such offense, not as a chief actor, but as a participator, as by command, advice, instigation, or concealment; either before or after the fact or commission; a particeps criminis. 4 Bl. Comm. 35: Cowell. An accessary is one who is not the chief actor in the offense, nor present at its per- formance, but in some way concerned there- in, either before or after the act committed. Code Ga. 1882, § 4306.

ACCESSARYmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

In Criminal Law. He who is not the chief actor in the perpe- tration of the offence, nor present at its performance, but is some way concerned therein, either before or after the fact com- mitted. An accessary before the fact is one who, being absent at the time of the crime com- mitted, yet procures, counsels, or com- mands another to commit it: 1 Hale, Pl. Cr. 615. With regard to those cases where the principal goes beyond the terms of the solicitation, the approved test is, "Was the event alleged to be the crime to which the accused is charged to be accessary, a prob- able effect of the act which he counselled?" 1 F. & F. Cr. Cas. 242; Rosc. Cr. Ev. 181. When the act is committed through the agency of a person who has no legal discre- tion or a will, as in the case of a child or an insane person, the incitor, though absent when the crime was committed, will be con- sidered, not an accessary, for none can be accessary to the acts of a madman, but a principal in the first degree; 1 Hale, Pl. Cr. 514; 12 Wheat. 469. But if the instrument is aware of the consequences of his act, he is a principal in the first degree, and the employer, if he is absent when the act is committed, is an accessary before the fact; 1 R. & R. Cr. Cas. 363; 1 Den. Cr. Cas. 37; 1 C. & Κ. 589; or if he is present, as a prin- cipal in the second degree; 1 Fost. Cr. Cas. 349; unless the instrument concur in the act merely for the purpose of detecting and punishing the employer, in which case he is considered as an innocent agent. An accessary after the fact is one who, knowing a felony to have been committed, receives, relieves, comforts, or assists the felon; 4 Bla. Com. 37. No one who is a principal can be an acces sary; but if acquitted as principal he may be indicted as an accessary after the fact; 14 R. I. 283. In certain crimes, there can be no acces- saries; all who are concerned are principals, whether they were present or absent at the time of their commission. These are treason, and all offences below the degree of felony; 4 Bla. Com. 35; Hawk. Pl. Cr. b. 2, c. 29, § 16; 1 Whart. Cr. L. § 223; 2 Den. Cr. Cas. 453; 5 Cox, Cr. Cas. 521; 2 Mood. Cr. Cas. 276; 8 Dana 28; 20 Miss. 58; 3 Gray 448; 14 Mo. 187; 18 Ark. 198; 4 J. J. Marsh. 182: 67 111. 587; 90 Ala. 583; 45 Fed. Rep. 851. Such is the English law; but in the United States it appears not to be determined as regards the cases of per- sons assisting traitors. Sergeant, Const. Law 382; 4 Cranch 472, 501; U. S. v. Fries, 3 Dall. 515. See 2 Wall. Jr. 134, 139; 16 Wall. 147; 12 Wall. 347. That there cannot be an accessary in cases of treason, see Davis, Cr. L. 38. Contra, 1 Whart. Cr. L. § 224. It is evident there can be no accessary when there is no principal; if a principal in a transaction be not liable under our laws, no one can be charged as a mere ac- cessary to him; 1 Woodb. & M. 221; 28 Tex. App. 526. But see 6 Ohio Cir. Ct. R. 331. Where two persons are indicted, one as principal and the other as aider or abettor, the latter may be convicted as principal, where the evidence shows he was the per- petrator of the deed; 92 Ky. 1. By the rules of the common law, an ac- cessary cannot be tried, without his con- sent, before the conviction of the principal; Fost. Cr. Cas. 360. This is altered by statute in most of the states. This rule is said to have been the outcome of strict medieval logic. The trial of the accused being by sacred or supernatural processes, it would be a shame to the law if the principal were acquitted after the accessary had been hanged. 2 Poll. & Maitl. 508. But an accessary to a felony committed by several, some of whom have been con- victed, may be tried as accessary to a felony committed by these last; but if he be in- dicted and tried as accessary to a felony committed by them all, and some of them have not been proceeded against; it is error; 7 S. & R. 491; 10 Pick. 484. If the principal is dead, the accessary cannot, by the common law, be tried at all; 16 Mass. 423. One indicted as an aider and abettor of the crime of murder may be placed on trial, convicted and sentenced for that offence, notwithstanding the principal offender had been tried previously, and convicted and sentenced for manslaughter only; 46 Ohio St. 457. See also Whart. Crim. Law: Desty, Crim. Law: Bishop, Crim. Law; Whart. Cr. Ev. ; Roscoe, Cr. Ev. ACCESSIO (Lat.). An increase or ad- dition; that which lies next to a thing, and is supplementary and necessary to the prin- cipal thing; that which arises or is pro- duced from the principal thing. Calvinus, Lex. A manner of acquiring the property in a thing which becomes united with that which a person already possesses. The doctrine of property arising from accessions is grounded on the rights of occupancy. It is said to be of six kinds in the Roman law. First. That which assigns to the owner of a thing its products, as the fruit of trees, the young of animals. Second. That which makes a man the owner of & thing which is made of ano

ACCESSARYmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867

[L. Lat. accessarius.] In criminal law. One who, without being present at the commission of a felonious offence, becomes guilty of such offence, not as a chief actor, but as a participator, as by command, advice, instigation or concealment, either before or after the fact or commission; a particeps criminis. 4 Bl. Com. 35. Cowell. See infra. mode of acquiring property by which according to the rule, Res accessoria sequitur rem principalem, (an accessory thing follows the principal thing,) or cedit rei principali, (belongs to the principal thing,) the proprietor of the principal thing becomes, ipso jure, proprietor of all that belongs to it, [or is added to, or connected with it,] as an accessory thing; whether such addition be by its own increase, as the fruits of the earth, the young of animals; or the operation of natural causes, as the gradual deposit, (alluvio,) made upon land by a stream; or by the voluntary act of another uniting his property with it, (adjunctio;) as by the interweav-

ACCESSARYa.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

Accompanying, as a subordinate; additional; accessory; esp., uniting in, or contributing to, a crime, but not as chief actor. See Accessory. To both their deaths thou shalt be accessary. Shak. Amongst many secondary and accessary causes that support monarchy, these are not of least reckoning. Milton.

ACCESSARYn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

One who, not being present, contributes as an assistant or instigator to the commission of an offense. Accessary before the fact (Law), one who commands or counsels an offense, not being present at its commission.  -- Accessary after the fact, one who, after an offense, assists or shelters the offender, not being present at the commission of the offense.

accessaryadj

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

Accompanying as a subordinate; additional; accessory; especially, uniting in, or contributing to, a crime, but not as chief actor. See accessory.

accessarynoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Someone who accedes to some act, now especially a crime; one who contributes as an assistant or instigator to the commission of an offense.

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