People v. Wheeler

Laurie Wheeler (defendant) got into an altercation with her neighbor Timothy Bothun, which escalated into a fight between Bothun and Wheeler's husband, Mitchell Anderson. Anderson later entered Bothun's apartment with a knife; during the resulting fight, Wheeler jumped on Bothun's back and pulled his hair while Anderson stabbed and killed Bothun. Anderson pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, and Wheeler was tried separately for criminally negligent homicide on a complicity (aiding-and-abetting) theory. The jury convicted Wheeler, but the trial court granted her motion for acquittal, reasoning it was logically impossible to be complicit in an unintentional killing when the complicitor would have to know the principal was going to unintentionally kill someone. The People appealed.