If you have knowledge of a crime that is about to be committed or that was just committed, you are mandated by law to report it immediately to the police if not you will be held to be an accessory and you will be treated like you helped the criminal with the planning or execution of the crime or that you helped the criminal to get away after he committed the crime.
Therefore, after you get a wind that a person is about to commit a crime and you did not report that to the police, you are an accessory and if you have the knowledge that a person just committed a crime and you did not report to the police you are also an accessory.
This legal obligation of reporting or disclosing information happens to be an exception to the privileged information rule. This means that, as a professional like a lawyer or doctor and a client or patient confides in you that he is planning to commit a crime or confides in you that he just committed a crime, you are expected to immediately report it to the police if not you will be held to be an accessory to the crime.
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The prosecutor does not necessarily have to prove that a person acted with intent to assist the person in committing the crime (accessory before the fact) or acted with the intent to cover up the crime or help the person escape (accessory after the fact), proving that the person has the knowledge of the crime was committed or before it was committed is enough for a person to be held culpable as an accessory.
There are two kinds of accessories. There is an accessory-after-the-fact which is someone who assists someone who has committed a crime after the person has committed the crime, with knowledge that the person committed the crime, and with the intent to help the person avoid arrest or punishment. An accessory after the fact is basically a person who, after the commission of the felony, “harbors, conceals, maintains, or assists the principal felon. While an accessory before the fact is someone who “counsels, hires, assists or otherwise procures a felony to be committed.”
In numerous criminal jurisdictions, an accessory both before and after the fact is also referred to as an accomplice.
As for the punishment for being an accessory or an accomplice to the commission of a crime, when a person is being held culpable for being an accessory or an accomplice, while the principal offender is liable for the full punishment, the accessory or the accomplice is given a lesser punishment for the commission of the crime.