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Examining Intent through the Lens of Complicity

The article seeks to demonstrate that hypotheticals which depict collective criminality shed light on the contested issue of conceptualizing criminal intent. Since the formulation of the doctrine of transferred malice in the English Common Law, criminal law has been grappling with the question of framing intent as either object-specific or type-oriented. This question is particularly salient where the defendant caused harm to a different object than the one he had in mind, either by accidentally missing the target or as a result of mistaken identification. In such cases, an object-specific conceptualization does not permit conviction for the harm caused, whereas a type-oriented one does, as would the doctrine that transfers the defendant’s intent from the intended person or object to the one actually harmed. Utilizing a methodology of embedding instances of accidental miss-aim and mistaken identification into scenarios that involve multiple accomplices, the article argues that the object-specific conceptualization of intent has the advantage of being most suited for assigning liability to the participants in an offence. The analysis offered also supports equal treatment of accidents and mistaken identification.