People v. Smith

Opinion

CHIN, J.

A person who aids and abets a crime is guilty of that crime, sometimes called the target crime. Additionally, that person is guilty of any other crime a principal in the target crime commits, sometimes called the nontarget crime, that is a natural and probable consequence of the target crime. In this case involving violent criminal street gangs, we must decide whether defendant was properly convicted of the murders of two of his fellow gang members even though he neither personally killed them nor desired their deaths. Because, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, a…