Criminal Law Before 1L: Inchoate Crimes - Attempt, Solicitation, Conspiracy, Merger, Withdrawal, and Abandonment

» 📘 VIEW THE COMPANION STUDY GUIDE 📘 [💡FREE💡] «▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬EPISODE SUMMARYInchoate crimes punish dangerous movement toward crime before the target offense is completed. The major inchoate crimes are attempt, solicitation, and conspiracy.Attempt requires intent to commit the target crime plus an act sufficiently close to completion. Attempt is a specific-intent offense even when the completed crime can be committed with a lower mental state. The hardest issue is distinguishing preparation from attempt. Tests include the last-act test, dangerous-proximity test, probable-desistance test, unequivocality test, and the Model Penal Code substantial-step test. Factual impossibility usually is not a defense. Legal impossibility may be a defense in limited circumstances, though modern law often narrows it. Abandonment traditionally was not a defense after attempt was complete, but the MPC may allow voluntary and complete renunciation.Solicitation is asking, encouraging, commanding, or requesting another person to commit a crime, with intent that the crime be committed. It is complete when the request is made, even if the person solicited refuses or does nothing.Conspiracy is an agreement to commit a crime, with intent to agree and intent that the crime be committed. Many jurisdictions require an overt act, which may be minor. Traditional bilateral conspiracy requires two guilty minds; unilateral conspiracy allows liability where the defendant believes an agreement exists, even if the other person is feigning agreement. Pinkerton liability may make conspirators liable for reasonably foreseeable crimes committed by co-conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy. Withdrawal may cut off liability for future crimes but usually does not erase the conspiracy already committed.Merger rules are important. Attempt usually merges into the completed offense. Solicitation often merges into a later completed offense or conspiracy. Conspiracy generally does not merge with the completed crime.The key lesson is separation. In every inchoate-crimes problem, analyze solicitation, conspiracy, attempt, merger, withdrawal, abandonment, and completion as distinct issues.