Short answer. Yes. A judgment of conviction must expressly state your participation in the offense — whether as principal, accomplice, or accessory after the fact — along with the offense's legal qualification, any aggravating or mitigating circumstances, the penalty imposed, and any civil liability owed to the offended party.
What the law says
If the judgment is of conviction, it shall state the legal qualification of the offense constituted by the acts committed by the accused and the aggravating or mitigating circumstances which attended its commission; the participation of the accused in the offense, whether as principal, accomplice, or accessory after the fact; the penalty imposed upon the accused; and the civil liability or damages caused by his wrongful act or omission to be recovered from the accused by the offended party, if there is any, unless the enforcement of the civil liability by a separate civil action has been reserved or waived.
Rule 120, Section 2 — Contents of the judgment. Read the full provision →
Your degree of participation is a required element
The rule is direct about this: a judgment of conviction shall state the participation of the accused in the offense, and it names the three categories a court must choose among — principal, accomplice, or accessory after the fact. This is not left to be inferred from the narrative of the decision or assumed from the charge filed against you. The judgment itself has to say, in terms, which of the three describes your role in what happened, as one of the specific things the law requires every conviction to contain.
Why the degree of participation has to be spelled out
Principal, accomplice, and accessory after the fact are not just descriptive labels — they mark different levels of responsibility for the same offense, and the penalty that follows depends on which one applies to you. A conviction that left this unstated would leave unresolved exactly the finding that determines how seriously you are being held to account. Requiring the judgment to specify it plainly closes that gap: it forces the court to commit to a conclusion on your role rather than leaving the reader of the judgment to guess at it from the surrounding discussion.
The other elements a conviction must also state
Your degree of participation is one item on a longer list. The same judgment must also state the legal qualification of the offense — what crime the acts committed actually amount to — together with any aggravating or mitigating circumstances that attended its commission, the penalty imposed on you, and the civil liability or damages to be recovered from you by the offended party, if any, unless a separate civil action was reserved or waived instead. Together these elements are meant to make a conviction a complete, self-contained statement of what you did, how it is classified, what role you played, and what follows from it.
What a judgment of acquittal states instead
For contrast, the same rule tells a court what an acquittal must say: whether the prosecution's evidence absolutely failed to prove your guilt, or merely failed to prove it beyond reasonable doubt. Either way, whether the judgment convicts or acquits, it must also determine whether the act or omission from which civil liability might arise actually existed. That last requirement applies regardless of the verdict, because civil liability can turn on a different question than criminal guilt does.