Conspiracy Liability - Criminal Law

CONSPIRACY

Jump to ACTUS REUS // MENS REA // PINKERTON // RENUNCIATION + WITHDRAWAL

• Separate crime

• Two meanings (1) inchoate crime, aims at preparatory conduct (2) accessory liability: individuals in C liable for actions of others in the group

• Conspiracy is a continual offense - ends when objective is achieved or abandoned

• Policy for conspiracy liability

  • (1) Deters conspiracies from forming and people from joining

    • Group dynamics strengthen resolve, allow for efficiencies, and increase likelihood of crime

    • Groups allow for more crimes and more serious and complex crimes to be committed, liability - included crimes unrelated to original purpose of the group

    • Group dynamics decrease probability that individuals will depart from path of criminality

  • (2) deters careless behavior within a conspiracy

  • (3) if the target crime is difficult to prosecute, get the defendants on conspiracy

  • (4) help prosecutors to get co-conspirators to cooperate, give information, and turn on the others, in order to take down the leaders of the conspiracy

• (CONSPIRACY) Actus Reus (not much work)

  • Agreement with someone else to commit a crime

    • Can be express or implied

  • Sometimes jx require an overt act

    • But very minor act suffices (buy materials, set time and place over telephone)

  • How to infer agreement

    • Relationship between the parties (Vs. strangers)

    • Financial agreement (shared interest)

    • Same motive for agreement (vs. different motive)

    • Verbal agreement and exchange (vs. lack)

    • Circumstances that make it improbable that action would happen without prior agreement

    • Ex. Perry: conspiracy to allow sexual abuse

      • Court: not enough to infer

      • Dissent: Implied agreement bc family relationship, motivated by financial support of the assaulter, told same lie to detective, knew about sex offense status > must have agreed

    • (1) government argument: conduct not have happened without agreement

    • (2) defense argument: this was parallel conduct that was independent and did not require agreement

  • MPC: 5.03(1)

    • (a) agrees with other(s) that one or more of them will commit the crime or an attempt or solicitation

    • (b) agrees to aid with other(s) in the planning or commission or attempt or solicitation of the crime

  • MPC 5.03(5) requires overt act unless serious crime (1st/2nd degree felony)

• (CONSPIRACY) Mens Rea – does most of the work

  • Conduct: purpose

  • Result: purpose (cannot conspire to commit unintended crime)

  • SAME with MPC: MPC 5.03: "promoting or facilitating its commission"

    • Purpose = conduct

    • Purpose = result

    • Policy

      • Don't want knowledge standard (including willful blindness) because

        • Makes seller liable if they know materials sold are intended for crime

        • Restricts free market activity

        • Encourages sellers' discriminatory practices

          • Refusal to sell due to race, appearance, or other factors pointing to criminal tendencies

        • Since with conspiracy culpability attaches early on, want to make sure defendant is culpable

        • Higher penalties should have higher mens rea

    • How to infer intent for conduct

      • Lauria - charge of conspiring to allow prostitution

      • Lauria factors (outside of direct evidence):

      • (1) crime is serious (not misdemeanor, yes murder) - intent inferred from knowledge

        • If know about serious crime and don’t stop it, only explanation is that you wanted the crime to happen

      • (2) personal stake in crime, charges inflated rates

        • D: inflated rate for another reasonable purpose - ex. Insure against damages from explosion; smart economic bargaining by taking advantage of buyer's youth and inexperience and charge higher rate

      • (3) materials have no lawful/legit use

      • (4) quantity of materials have no lawful/legit use/demand

        • volume of business grossly disproportionate to any legitimate demand

        • sales for illegal use amount to a high proportion of the seller’s total business

      • D: market players are different from people joining conspiracy

• Pinkerton liability (dominant in federal system, some states) - conspiracy as accessory liability

  • RULE If someone joins a conspiracy and target crime occurs, not only responsible for conspiracy and target crime but also additional crimes committed by co-conspirators that are

    • (1) in furtherance of the conspiracy

      • Intent to further conspiracy is enough; a terrible judgment that actually harm or exposed the conspiracy counts

    • (2) reasonably foreseeable

      • Objective - Either foreseeable by a reasonable person or foreseeable by a reasonable person in the defendant's situation

  • Ex. Pinkerton: brothers conspire to defraud gov

  • Ex. State v. Bridges: conspiracy only to assault but co-conspirators, armed, kill to further conspiracy, reasonably foreseeable, so liable

  • Effect:

    • Allows charging of 3 separate crimes (conspiracy, target, additional)

    • Most often applied to sentences tied to drug quantities

      • Conspirator becomes responsible for quantities of others > long sentences

  • Advantages:

    • (1) deters formation and joining of conspiracies, thus deter the number of crimes, severity of crimes, that are created because of the efficiencies of the group dynamic

    • (2) disciplining effect within conspiracy - make sure people stick to the target crime

    • (3) broad liability makes it easy for prosecutors to threaten high sentences to extract cooperation/testimony from one co-conspirator to incriminate the others

      • Otherwise difficult to pierce through group dynamics and get to leaders

    • (4) increasingly sophisticated large organized crime - Pinkerton the only way to get to the top members

  • Disadvantages

    • (1) punishment is grossly disproportionate to conscious wrongdoing

    • (2) the deterrence effect is not strong in practice

      • People are not motivated by conspiracy liability in deciding whether to join a conspiracy, often young people who made a bad decision who is now responsible for other people's worse decisions

      • Low level...