How have courts interpreted the doctrine of "opposition"?

The first is Hicks v. U.S. (1893) 150 U.S. 442, 14 S.Ct. 144, 37 L.Ed. 1137. An instruction required the jury to conclude that from the mere utterance of words that had the effect of encouraging the perpetrator to commit an offense, it must be concluded that the utterer intended them to be understood as such. The defendant testified that his words were intended to dissuade the perpetrator. An intent to dissuade is the exact opposite of an intent to encourage. Thus the instruction prevented the jury from crediting the [172 Cal.App.3d 513] defendant's testimony and thereby removed the issue of his intention from consideration. ¹⁵

A second example is similar in kind. In People v. Bolanger (1886) 71 Cal. 17, 11 P. 799, a case arising under the accomplice provisions of Penal Code section 1111 (see fn. 13), a witness challenged as an accomplice stated that he intended to participate in the larceny charged against the perpetrator but had feigned complicity for the purpose of detecting the thieves. The court held that he was not an accomplice, saying that "[a]n accomplice is one who knowingly, voluntarily, and with common intent with the principal offender unites in the commission of the crime." (Id., at p. 20, 11 P. 799.) To act so as to frustrate a criminal objective negates an intent to further it.