Nevertheless, in the second-degree verdict, the appeals chamber dismissed the notion of such a joint criminal enterprise.
During deliberations, the foreperson asked whether a third-degree verdict was an option if they found Olds guilty of robbery and conspiracy; she was told that the jury could return any verdict it saw fit.
This first-degree verdict means that the jurors have agreed not only that Magnotta was sane when he killed Jun Lin, but also that the murder was carefully planned and premeditated.
In addition, the judge's instructions to the jury made no mention of the consequences of a second-degree murder verdict.
For the past few weeks, talking to my friends about the Oscar Grant shooting trial, the long conversations were always the same: Everybody wanted a second-degree murder verdict for Johannes Mehserle, a white police officer who was accused of shooting Grant, an African American, on New Year's Eve in 2009.
To some degree, history's verdict is shaped by the values of the time in which that history is written, and whom it is written by.
But Abraham Scott, who lost his wife in the Pentagon and who had sat through much of the trial, told reporters that while he was satisfied to some degree over the verdict, some testimony raised anew questions about the government.
The jury could issue three possible verdicts: acquittal; guilty of second-degree murder, which carries a sentence of 15 years to life; or guilty of first-degree murder, a verdict that could lead to life without parole or the death penalty.
The respect that his work has generated meant that some historians greeted this week's verdict with a degree of regret, even unease.
An "open verdict", recognising this degree of ignorance, would be his preferred position.
A1 Murder Conviction Voided A California judge threw out a jury verdict of second-degree murder for Marjorie Knoller, whose dogs mauled a neighbor to death.
