See COMMODATUM. ACCOMPLICE (Lat. ad and compli- care-con, with, together, plicare, to fold, to wrap, to fold together). In Criminal Law. One who is COL- cerned in the commission of a crime. The term in its fulness includes in its meaning all persons who have been concerned in the commission of a crime, all participes criminis, whether they are considered in strict legal propriety as principals in the first or second degree, or merely as accessaries before or after the fact; Fost. Cr. Cas. 341; 1 Russ. Cr. 21; 4 Bla. Com. 381; 1 Phil. Ev. 28; Merlin, Répert. Complice. It has been questioned, whether one who was an accomplice to a suicide can be punished as such. A case occurred in Prussia where a soldier, at the re- quest of his comrade, had cut the latter in pieces; for this he was tried capitally. In the year 1817, a young woman named Leruth received a recompense for aiding a man to kill himself. He put the point of a bistoury on his naked breast, and used the hand of the young woman to plunge it with greater force into his bosom; hearing some noise, he or- dered her away. The man, receiving effectual aid, was soon cured of the wound which had been in- flicted, and she was tried and convicted of having inflicted the wound, and punished by ten years, im- prisonment. Lepage, Science du Droit, ch. 2, art. 8, §5. The case of Saul, the King of Israel, and his armor-bearer (1 Sam. xxxi. 4), and of David and the Amalekite (2 Sam. 1. 2-16), will doubtless occur to the reader. In Massachusetts, it has been held, that, if one counsels another to commit suicide, he is princi- pal in the murder; for it is a presumption of law, that advice has the influence and effect intended by the adviser, unless it is shown to have been otherwise, as, for example, that it was received with scoff or manifestly rejected and ridiculed at the time; 18 Mass. 859. See 7 Bost. Law Rep. 215. It is now finally settled, that it is not a rule of law, but of practice only, that a jury should not convict on the unsupported tes- timony of an accomplice. Therefore, if a jury choose to act on such evidence only, the conviction cannot be quashed as bad in law. The better practice is for the judge to advise the jury to acquit, unless the tes- timony of the accomplice is corroborated, not only as to the circumstances of the offence, but also as to the participation of the accused in the transaction; and when several parties are charged, that it is not sufficient that the accomplice should be confirmed, as to one or more of the prison- ers, to justify a conviction of those pris- oners with respect to whom there is no confirmation; 7 Cox, Cr. Cas. 20; Dearsl. Cr. Cas. 555; -10 Cush. 535. See 1 Fost. & F. 388; Greenl. Ev. § 111; 127 Mass. 424; 34 Amer. Rep. 391, 408. An accomplice is a competent witness for the prosecution; 53 Fed. Rep. 536; he is not incompetent when indicted separately; 115 Mo. 452. Though the evidence of an ac- complice uncorroborated is sufficient, it should be received with caution; 58 Fed. Rep. 536; 117 Mo. 302; 52 Kan. 335. See