{"id":5353,"date":"2009-05-26T13:49:06","date_gmt":"2009-05-26T18:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=5353"},"modified":"2009-05-26T13:49:06","modified_gmt":"2009-05-26T18:49:06","slug":"it-takes-two-to-tango","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/05\/it-takes-two-to-tango\/","title":{"rendered":"It Takes Two to Tango"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Historically, courts have declined to impose aiding and abetting liability regarding crimes for which two parties are essential to commission.\u00a0 As the Model Penal Code puts it, accomplice liability does not extend to conduct that is “inevitably incident” to the main offense; more colloquially, accomplice liability will not apply to crimes for which it “takes two to tango.”\u00a0 Thus, a buyer of drugs for personal use does not aid or abet the dealer’s distribution; a woman who voluntarily accompanies a man across state lines for purposes of prostitution does not facilitate his violation of the Mann Act; the patron of a speakeasy does not aid and abet the illegal sale of alcohol.\u00a0 And, as of today, a person who telephones a drug trafficker to order cocaine for personal use does not violate 21 U.S.C. \u00a7 843(b).<\/p>\n

Section 843(b) offenses are commonly known as “phone counts.”\u00a0 The statute makes it a felony, punishable by up to four years in prison, to knowingly or intentionally\u00a0 use any communication facility in committing or in causing or facilitating the commission of any act or acts constituting a felony under the Controlled Substances Act.\u00a0 Some Circuits, including the Seventh, had held that a buyer’s use of the phone in purchasing drugs “facilitates” the seller’s (felony) drug distribution within the meaning of \u00a7 843(b).\u00a0 Today, in Abuelhawa v. United States<\/em>, the Supreme Court held that Congress, legislating in light of the common-law tradition discussed above, did not intend such a result.\u00a0 Although the term “facilitate” could be subject to the broad construction urged by the government, the Court found that Congress likely intended the term “facilitate” to be construed similar to “aid and abet.”\u00a0 The Court noted that Congress generally made simple drug possession a misdemeanor, and transforming misdemeanor possession into a felony simply because a phone was involved would skew “the congressional calibration of respective buyer-seller penalties.”<\/p>\n

Phone counts are often used as a means of resolving cases involving greater charges, like conspiracy to distribute.\u00a0 In those situations, even if the caller is primarily a user, he may intend at least some of the drugs for re-distribution, or he may be middling transactions for others.\u00a0 But simply using the phone to make a misdemeanor drug purchase is (now) outside the scope of the statute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Historically, courts have declined to impose aiding and abetting liability regarding crimes for which two parties are essential to commission.\u00a0 As the Model Penal Code puts it, accomplice liability does not extend to conduct that is “inevitably incident” to the main offense; more colloquially, accomplice liability will not apply to crimes for which it “takes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,28,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-criminal-law-process","category-us-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}