What could a getaway driver be charged with?

Question

This a hypothetical question but one that I think is interesting. If someone was a getaway driver involved in a bank robbery could they be charged for more than reckless driving, would they be an accomplice, or could they be charged with something else?

Answer 1

In New South Wales, Australia a getaway driver is a “principal in the second degree”

new-south-wales

Under s345 of the Crimes Act 1900:

Every principal in the second degree in any serious indictable offence shall be liable to the same punishment to which the person would have been liable had the person been the principal in the first degree.

So, they can (and will) be charged with everything that the guys in the bank are charged with.

Answer 2

united-states

In the US: conspiracy, complicity, plus any statutes that have been engineered to include this kind of thing within their ambit. Depending on the jurisdiction the getaway driver may be on the hook for felony murder, too, if the main bank robbers kill someone while robbing the bank.

Answer 3

In English law there are no limits to the number of people that can be considered to have primary or secondary liability under the common-law principle of 'Joint Enterprise'. So-call 'Secondaries' (for example getaway drivers) can be charged alongside 'Primaries' (the robber/s themselves) and receive the same sentence, although a cursory look at cases would suggest that they typically receive lighter sentences, especially if they give evidence against the primaries.

Note that where new offences occur during the same crime (such as dangerous driving during an escape that results in injuries to members of the public or police), the CPS would take into account the difficulty of proving that the other parties were actively responsible for their driving decisions.

Where two or more persons are involved in an offence, the parties to the offence may be principals (D1) or secondary parties (accessories ) (D2). Each offence will have at least one principal, although it is not always possible or necessary to identify the principal(s).

A principal is one who carries out the substantive offence i.e. performs or causes the actus reus of the offence with the required mens rea. If two or more persons do so, they are joint principals.

A secondary party is one who aids, abets, counsels or procures (commonly referred to as assists or encourages) D1 to commit the substantive offence, without being a principal offender. However, a secondary party can be prosecuted and punished as if he were a principal offender: s8 Accessories and Abettors Act 1861.

Secondary liability principles can be applied to most offences. The principles remain the same, whichever offence they are applied to. The principles are commonly used in offences of violence, theft, fraud and public order.

_{^{Secondary Liability: charging decisions on principals and accessories}}

Answer 4

france

Articles 121-6 and 121-7 of the penal code (applicable to all criminal matters, including armed robbery):

(121-6) Sera puni comme auteur le complice de l'infraction, au sens de l'article 121-7.

(121-7) Est complice d'un crime ou d'un délit la personne qui sciemment, par aide ou assistance, en a facilité la préparation ou la consommation.

Est également complice la personne qui par don, promesse, menace, ordre, abus d'autorité ou de pouvoir aura provoqué à une infraction ou donné des instructions pour la commettre.

(121-6) An accomplice as defined by 121-7 is punished for the same infraction as the principal author.

(121-7) Anyone who knowingly assists in the preparation or execution of a crime or felony is an accomplice.

Anyone who gives instructions to commit infraction, or provokes it by way of gifts, promises, threats, orders, or abuse of authority, is also an accomplice.

In your example, the getaway driver is responsible for the bank robbery (the whole point of them being here is to pick up the principal authors after the robbery occurs), but not for the death of a policeman in a shootout (assuming it was a reaction to unfolding events, rather than a previously-planned-out scenario to which the getaway driver was privy).

In the vast majority of cases, accomplices are punished less harshly than the principal author. There are counterexamples though, typically when the "accomplice" is much further involved in the planning and held to a higher standard of responsability than the principal author.

One example is from a well-known 1995 case. On a construction site, a crane operator thinks that wind speeds make operation of the crane dangerous. He asks repeatedly his immediate boss for permission to stop the crane and take safety measures. That boss refuses and tells him he will be fired if he keeps whining. The crane eventually collapses onto the roof of a nearby school, killing some and injuring some (among which the crane operator). While the lower-level court initially acquitted the crane operator, the appeals court of Nancy found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter (unlike the US, acquittal can be appealed by the prosecution). Yet, the crane operator was subject only to symbolic punishment (a suspended fine equivalent to about €2300 in 2023), unlike those higher-up in the hierarchy, who all got jail sentences (the on-site boss as well as some people with health and safety responsabilities all got jail sentences; the decision is famous because it spurred some statutory changes in criminal responsibility for corporate actors, but that is outside the scope of this answer). I could not find the text of the 1998 decision, but here’s the Cour de Cassation confirming the fine for the crane operator in 1999 and here’s a newspaper summary of the case and resulting decisions.

Another well-know (though fictional) example would be the events in Macbeth. (Spoiler alert I guess?) Macbeth kills king Duncan after being pushed to do so by his wife, who assists in the preparation and also execution (planting evidence incriminating the bodyguards after the murder). Macbeth becomes king, but is eventually violently overthrown and killed in the process; let’s assume he is instead captured and somehow tried in front of a fair court. The detailed facts of the assassination are only known to Macbeth and his wife (who is dead by that point), and Macbeth has been seen in public having delirious visions, which his wife attributed to an illness he had "since his youth" (act III, scene 4). While an insanity defense is probably not available, Macbeth’s lawyer could easily claim that his client’s mental judgement has always been impaired, and that his wife manipulated him into committing the crime. (Of course, an all-knowing spectator knows this is false: in act I scene 7 Macbeth is ambitious on his own and aware of the enormity of his crime; and in act III scene 4, Lady Macbeth is lying to cover up the reasons of his husband’s deteriorating mental state.) Had his wife been alive, she would probably receive a harsher sentence than he would, under the available evidence.