Maryland Criminal Defense: What Does it Mean to Be Charged With Criminal Accessory After the Fact?

If someone you know has been involved in a crime and you help — in any way — you can be charged with an “accessory crime” in Maryland. Generally, the crimes are distinguished as accessory-after-the-fact and accessory-before-the-fact. In this article, we will focus on the first type of accessory crime. To convict for accessory-after-the-fact, generally, the prosecuting attorneys must prove four legal elements which are:

• The person charged with accessory assisted some other person
• Who committed a crime
• With the knowledge that the other person committed the crime and
• With the intent to help the other person avoid arrest or punishment

Depending on the facts of the case, prosecuting attorneys often charge other crimes along with the charge of accessory after the fact. These include charges of obstruction of justice and criminal conspiracy. A few examples include being the driver of a getaway car after a bank robbery, getting rid of a weapon used in the crime, driving the other person to a store to buy bleach and cleaning supplies to help cover up evidence of the crime, other assistance in hiding or destroying evidence of the crime, and providing a false alibi. Note that, with the example of helping to buy cleaning supplies, it is still accessory-after-the-fact even if the person assisting does not actually help with the efforts to clean up. If the person who assisted knew why the cleaning supplies were being bought, that is enough for a charge of accessory-after-the-fact.

Under Maryland Criminal Code, §1–301, the conviction of being an accessory-after-the-fact is deemed the same as being convicted of the underlying felony crime. Thus, punishments are the LESSER of a jail term of up to five years OR up to the maximum penalty allowed for conviction of the underlying felony. If a person is convicted of being an accessory-after-the-fact for murder in the first or second degree, then the minimum incarceration sentence is 10 years.

Are there potential criminal defenses?

Yes. Truthfully, there are almost always potential legal defenses to any crime that can be charged in Maryland. This is why it is so important to hire excellent Maryland criminal defense attorneys. With respect to charges of accessory after the fact, some potential defenses can be seen in the elements listed above. Thus, one defense is a lack of knowledge that the other person committed a crime. To continue our example of buying cleaning supplies, if there was no knowledge of why cleaning supplies were needed, there can be no conviction of being an accessory after the fact.

Other potential Maryland criminal defenses include:

• Duress — assistance was only provided under threat of force or violence
• Mistake — someone else provided the assistance
• Alibi — the person charged was not at the scene of the alleged assistance or otherwise could not have provided the alleged assistance
• Fraud — the person who committed the crime used deceit or lies to obtain assistance (for example, claim there was an accident rather than murder)
• Assistance was withdrawn — a difficult defense, but in some cases, it might be a defense to claim that the alleged assistance was withdrawn

Contact Waldorf, Maryland Criminal Defense Lawyer Robert Castro Today

This article has been provided by the Law Office of Robert Castro. For more information or questions, contact our office to speak to an experienced Maryland criminal defense lawyer at (301) 870-1200. We are Waldorf, MD, Criminal Defense lawyers. Our address is