Complicity in stealing property case and criminal liability in Vietnam

The evidence for this type of crime is Judgment 44/2017/HSST on Nguyen Thanh Q and his co-conspirators of property theft, which was first heard by the People's Court of Dong Ha city, Quang Tri province as follows:

On May 20, 2017, Nguyen Thanh Q and Phan Thanh M were drinking coffee near Q's house, Q came up with the idea of ​​stealing Melaleuca trees to sell and invited M to join. At 10 o'clock on the same day, M invited Tran Duc T to go sawing and steal melaleuca, T agreed.

Arriving, Q stood outside the realm, M and T stole 38 Melaleuca trees with a diameter of 11-22 cm and cut the trees into 3 to 4 segments, arranged in piles, then left and arranged to pick up the afternoon.

Around 5.00 p.m on the same day, Q arrived at the location to store Melaleuca wood and then prepared to take it out for consumption with T and M. However, he discovered that the officer of the Agricultural General Service Cooperative D and the ward police, so Q drove a car to run away, T and M were arrested with the evidence.

The value of 38 Melaleuca trees is: 3,283,200 VND.

In addition to the above act of sawing and stealing Melaleuca wood, on July 23, 2017, Tran Duc T also committed the act of stealing mobile phones in G district, Quang Tri province.

Compared with the current regulations, with the act of stealing property in this case, Clause 1, Article 138 of the Criminal Code 1999, under Chapter XIV will apply.

Article 138.Stealing property

1. Those who steal other persons property valued between five hundred thousand dong and fifty million dong, or under five hundred thousand dong but causing serious consequences, or who have been administratively sanctioned for acts of appropriation or sentenced for the appropriation of property, not yet entitled to criminal record remission but repeat their violations, shall be subject to non-custodial reform for up to three years or to a prison term of between six months and three years.

A characteristic sign of stealing property is the stealthy trick of the offender, taking advantage of the victim's loopholes to appropriate their property. Offenders always consciously conceal their behavior when performing, trying to perform the act in a way that the victim does not detect.

It is found that in the above case there are signs of complicity who will be prosecuted for the same crime as the person who directly commits the crime.

For the provisions on accomplices as prescribed in Article 20 of theCriminal Code 1999 as follows:

Article 20.- Complicity

1. Complicity is where two or more persons intentionally commit a crime.

2. The organizers, executors, instigators and helpers are all accomplices.

The executors are those who actually carry out the crimes.

The organizers are those who mastermind, lead and direct the execution of crimes.

The instigators are those who incite, induce and encourage other persons to commit crimes.

The helpers are those who create spiritual or material conditions for the commission of crimes.

3. The organized commission of a crime is a form of complicity with close collusion among persons who jointly commit the crime

It can be seen that, with the role of the accused in the process of committing the above crime, the defendants when performing the crime are accomplices but simple, in which: Nguyen Thanh Q is the one who initiated the crime. The initiator is also the watchman for Phan Thanh M and Tran Duc T to directly commit the offence. The defendants did not have a unified discussion, pre-assignment about the roles and tasks of each person, just idle, so the intention of stealing arose.

In addition, the defendants, when committing this crime, intentionally committed the crime but did not do it to the end for unintended reasons, specifically: When the defendants were about to move the appropriated property for consumption, they were discovered and arrested.

In this case, applying Articles 18, 20, 52 and 53 of the Criminal Code 1999 to the defendants is in accordance with the provisions of the criminal law.

Even though they are just simple accomplices, the aforementioned offenses are dangerous to society; infringing upon the property rights of others protected by law; causing disorder and peace in the area, it is necessary to apply strict punishments to have the effect of educating, deterring, preventing and repelling crimes.

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