This Article presents a theory whereby criminal punishments are routinely distributed in proportion to the weight of the evidence mounted against the defendant. According to this theory, the law relaxes the stringent decision threshold in criminal trials—beyond a reasonable doubt—by creating easy-to-prove evidentiary offenses. These offenses, in turn, are associated with less severe sanctions, thus creating a de-facto proportional liability regime. Against that backdrop, the Article examines the legal duty to report criminal activity to the authorities. As the analysis shows, while legal scholars analyzing such duties have focused on the paradigmatic case in which an innocent bystander, friend or family member is unwittingly exposed to information about a crime, in practice these duties are rarely used in such cases. Rather, reporting duties are used to prosecute suspected accomplices whose involvement in the commission of the actual crime is difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Thus, offenses imposing a reporting duty on criminal activity turn out to be part of the general framework of accomplice liability, and are used to apply less severe sanctions in cases of evidentiary uncertainty.

这篇文章提出了一种理论，根据该理论，刑事处罚通常是根据对被告不利的证据的权重按比例分配的。根据这一理论，法律通过建立易于证明的证据犯罪，放宽了刑事审判中严格的决定门槛——排除合理怀疑。反过来，这些罪行与较不严厉的制裁有关，从而建立了事实上的比例责任制度。在此背景下，本文探讨了向当局报告犯罪活动的法律义务。正如分析所示，虽然分析此类义务的法律学者侧重于无辜的旁观者、朋友或家人无意中接触到犯罪信息的典型案例，但在实践中这些义务很少用于此类案件。相当，报告职责用于起诉参与实施实际犯罪的涉嫌共犯，这些同谋难以排除合理怀疑之外的证据。因此，对犯罪活动施加报告义务的罪行最终成为共犯责任一般框架的一部分，并用于在证据不确定的情况下适用较轻的制裁。