1. Attempt, Conspiracy, and Solicitation
Criminal Law
Chapter 8
Inchoate Crimes:
Attempt, Conspiracy, and Solicitation
Joel Samaha, 9th Ed.

2. Inchoate Crimes Offenses based on crimes not yet committed.
Each inchoate offense has its own elements,
but they all share two elements:
the mens rea of purpose or specific intent
and the actus reus of taking some steps
toward accomplishing the criminal purpose –
but not enough steps to complete the intended crime.
These offenses include:
Criminal attempt, criminal conspiracy,
and criminal solicitation.

3. Inchoate Offenses Criminal attempts: trying commit crimes.
Criminal conspiracy: making agreements with someone else to commit a crime.
Criminal solicitation: trying to get someone else to commit a crime.

4. Attempt 1) Intent or purpose to commit a specific crime.
2) An act, or acts, to carry out the intent.
* (statutes vary among states as to
specific or general attempt).

5. Attempt – Mens Rea Purpose to engage in criminal conduct
or cause a criminal result.
Discuss the facts and opinion of:
People v. Kimball
311 N.W.2d 343 (1981 Mich.App.
People v. Moreland
WL (Cal.App. 2 Dist. 2002)

6. Attempt – Actus Reus Model Penal Code’s
‘Substantial Steps Test’ for actus reus.
Two elements:
1) “substantial steps” toward completing the crime and
2) steps that “strongly corroborate
the actor’s purpose.”

7. Attempt – Actus Reus
The MPC requires that attempters take enough steps toward completing the crime
not to show that a crime is about to occur
but to prove that the attempters are determined to commit it.
The following are examples of “substantial steps” if they strongly corroborate the actor’s criminal purpose to commit the intended crime:
Lying in wait; enticing the contemplated victim to go to
the contemplated place for its commission; reconnoitering (“casing”); unlawful entry;
possession of materials to be employed
in the commission of the crime;
soliciting an innocent agent.

8. Discuss the facts and opinion of: Commonwealth v. Peaslee (1901)
Attempt: Actus Reus
Discuss the facts and opinion of:
Young v. State
493 A.2d 352 (Md. 1985)
People v. Rizzo (1927)
Commonwealth v. Peaslee (1901)

9. Impossibility Explain the difference between
legal impossibility and factual impossibility.
What is an extraneous factor?
Discuss the facts and opinion in:
State v. Damms
100 N.W.2d 592 (Wis. 1960)
State v. Robbins (2002)
State v. Kordas (1995)

10. Abandonment Does the voluntary abandonment defense
relieve a would-be criminal of criminal liability?
How would an extraneous factor influence this defense?
Discuss the facts and opinion in:
LeBarron v. State
145 N.W.2d 79 (Wis. 1966)

11. Conspiracy Actus reus for conspiracy consists of
1) an agreement* to commit a crime (in all states) and
2) an overt act in furtherance of the agreement
(in half of the states and the federal courts).
Discuss the opinion and facts in:
U.S v. Garcia
151 F.3d 1243 (CA9 1998)
* The act of agreement between two or more people
to commit a crime.

12. Conspiracy Mens rea for conspiracy is not clearly defined.
Is it a specific-intent crime?
In other words, intent to attain a specific objective.
Does the mens rea require purpose?
How does the Model Penal Code define conspiracy?

13. Conspiracy
The traditional definition of conspiracy includes the attendant circumstance element that agreements involve “two or more parties agreeing or combining to commit a crime (MPC).
However, the unilateral approach in most modern statues does not require that all conspirators agree-or even know-the other conspirators.
What are wheel and chain conspiracies?
Does conspiracy enhance RICO statutes?
If so, in what way?

14. Solicitation The actus reus in criminal solicitation consists of words
that induce someone to commit a crime, e.g.,
advises, commands, entices, induces, urges, solicits.
The mens rea in criminal solicitation requires words
that convey that their purpose is
to get someone to commit a specific crime.
Therefore, solicitation is a specific-intent crime –
a crime of purpose
(some states require the objective to
committing felonies or violent felonies).

15. Discuss the facts and opinion of:
Solicitation
Discuss the facts and opinion of:
State v. Cotton
790 P.2d 1050 (N.M.App. 1990)