In terrorism cases, it appears that complicity and vicarious liability are in fact less difficult for prosecutors to establish in terrorism cases. In the case of federal law, there is a certain procedure by which prosecutors determine both complicity and vicarious liability with respect to terrorism cases. There is a certain ease with the charge of complicity given the nature of the law. In the context of conspiracy, each person involved in the crime – no matter how big or small his or her attachment, may be associated and thereby deemed complicit and subject to federal indictment (Dempsi 2006). There is an added feature of this charge with creates a sort of snowball effect as well. Anyone associated with an act of terrorism and deemed complicit to the crime thereby automatically also becomes subject to the host of object offenses that are associated with the entire conspiracy as a whole (Dempsi). For example, in the case of the Boston Bombing Marathon case, the young individuals who emptied the contents of Tsarnaev's backpack in his hotel room were deemed complicit, even though they purportedly had no knowledge of the premeditated offense and simply were trying to protect their friend. There unknowing complicity, however, made them furthermore subject to federal charge and incarceration for their alleged offenses.
The issue of vicarious liability with respect to federal terrorism cases is often explained in the context of what is known as “the Pinkerton doctrine.”(Dempsi 2006) This doctrine fully caputres the criminal liability that is associated with the modern conceptual understanding of complicity (Dempsi 2006). Under the Pinkerton doctrine, a person or persons becomes automatically liable for offenses even if they never intended or conspired to commit any of them. The mere fact of their involvement or association - sometimes as minor as being at the wrong place at the wrong time – suffices to encroach them in criminal liability (Dempsi 2006). The caveat to this vicarious liability effect is that the offenses must be foreseeable to a reasonable degree as judged by a court of law (Dempsi 2006). A defense attorney may raise a defense, therefore, that Tsarnaev's roommates who emptied the contents of his backpack are without vicarious liability because the events were not reasonably foreseeable or knowable.
In my view, the elements of homicide should continue to be applied to mass scale killings. The elements of homicide are the elements of the modern jurisprudence framework in the United States that characterize how premeditated murder is considered for trial in a court of law. First degree murder is characterized, generally, as unlawful and premeditated murder committed by a perpetrator or group of perpetrators against a known or identified target or targets (“First Degree Murder Overview” 2015). Thus, I believe, terror fits nicely into this definition and should not be considered necessarily something different and apart from regular homicide. This question has been the subject of national debate and discussion because of its controversial nature. Some raise the issue and ask whether terror is in fact something different, separate and apart from regular homicide. The logical implication is to ask, furthermore, if whether the nature of terror impedes efforts to get to the bottom of what has actually happened? If by applying these normal constraints. I do not think that the prima facie elements to proving any case beyond a reasonable fall outside the scope of the elements of homicide to efficiently prosecute murder on a mass scale, whether it is terroristic or not. Furthermore, keeping terrorism cases within the modern legal definitional framework of homicide provides a further safeguard to curbing the exploitations of power committed by FBI officials who have in recent years switched their investigation modes from criminal to monitoring and surveillance mode (Cole 2006). This action has resulted in greater risk of a violation of civil liberties as well agency infefficiencies. Many commentators cite the fact that the FBI's core competencies exist as a criminal investigation unit, and not as a federally mandated extension of domestic surveillance committed without constituional mandate as has occurred with the domestic spying program institution by the NSA (Cole 2006).
References
Cole, D., & Dempsey, J. X. (2006). Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing civil liberties in
the name of national security. The New Press.
Drumbl, M. A. (2006). Expressive Value of Prosecuting and Punishing Terrorists: Hamdan, the Geneva Conventions, and International Criminal Law, The. Geo. Wash. L. Rev., 75, 1165.
Evans, C. M. (2002). Terrorism on Trial: The President's Constitutional Authority to Order the Prosecution of Suspected Terrorists by Military Commission. Duke Law Journal, 1831- 1856.
“First Degree Murder Overview” (2015). Crimlaw.com. Retrieved from http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/first-degree-murder-overview.html
