What is the current state of the law on a defendant's aider and abettor liability?

"It is not surprising, therefore, that courts today as a general rule ... make criminal liability exclusively dependent upon causation." (Sayre, supra, 43 Harv. L.Rev. at p. 702.) Accordingly, "even if the particular criminal act has not been authorized or consented to, if it grows out of and is the proximate consequence of one that has been authorized or procured, the [14 Cal.4th 289] defendant is criminally liable...." (Id., at pp. 703-704, fn. omitted.) In this manner, the law has maintained criminal responsibility commensurate with culpability. (People v. Luparello (1986) 187 Cal.App.3d 410, 439, 231 Cal.Rptr. 832; cf. People v. Washington (1965) 62 Cal.2d 777, 783, 44 Cal.Rptr. 442, 402 P.2d 130 [felony-murder rule limited to killings "committed by the defendant or by his accomplice acting in furtherance of their common design" to avoid further eroding "relation between criminal liability and moral culpability"]; Neal v. State of California (1960) 55 Cal.2d 11, 20, 9 Cal.Rptr. 607, 357 P.2d 839 [statutory limitation on multiple punishment to ensure defendant's "punishment will be commensurate with his criminal liability"].) Deeply rooted in the common law, this causative theory of aider and abettor liability remains the standard. Indeed, some jurisdictions have incorporated it into their statutory definitions of accomplices. (See 1 Wharton's, Criminal Law (15th ed. 1993) Parties, 35, pp. 209-210; see also, e.g., Me. Rev. Stats. Ann. tit. 17-A 57(3)(A); Minn. Stats. Ann. 609.05(2).)