California POST Training Practice Test 2025 - Free Law Enforcement Practice Questions and Study Guide.

An accessory to a crime is defined as a person who assists another individual in committing a crime or who helps that individual avoid apprehension after the crime has occurred. Specifically, this includes actions such as harboring, concealing, or providing aid to a principal offender after the felony has been committed. This legal definition emphasizes the role of the accessory in aiding the criminal either through direct support during or after the crime or by covering up for the principal offender, thus playing a complicit role in the crime.

The other options do not accurately describe an accessory. Merely committing a crime refers to the principal offender, and being present during a crime does not automatically designate a person as an accessory unless they assist or aid the principal. Reporting a crime to authorities is not an action that implicates someone as an accessory; rather, it is an act of cooperation with law enforcement.