Inchoate Crimes and Accomplice Liability: every key term you need (+ practice quiz)
25 flashcard terms for Criminal Law Topic 7, written to match the course framework. Study them here, then drill them as interactive flashcards, or test yourself with the 15-question quiz — free, no account needed.
A crime punishing conduct aimed at a further criminal objective that has not been achieved, comprising attempt, solicitation, and conspiracy.
Criminal attempt
An offense requiring the intent to commit the target crime plus conduct that goes beyond mere preparation toward its commission.
Intent required for attempt
Attempt demands a purpose to bring about the criminal result even where the completed offense could be committed recklessly, which is why attempted involuntary manslaughter does not exist.
Last act test
A restrictive attempt standard finding liability only when the defendant has performed every act believed necessary to bring about the intended result.
Dangerous proximity test
An approach asking how close in time and space the defendant came to completing the offense, weighing the gravity of the harm and the likelihood of success.
Substantial step test
The Model Penal Code standard requiring conduct strongly corroborative of the actor's criminal purpose, which reaches earlier conduct such as lying in wait or reconnoitering.
People v. Rizzo
Men driving about looking for a payroll clerk they never found were not guilty of attempted robbery because they never came dangerously near to committing the crime.
United States v. Jackson
A federal court applied the substantial step approach to uphold attempted bank robbery convictions where the defendants reconnoitered and returned armed.
Abandonment defense
Some jurisdictions and the Model Penal Code allow a defense where the actor completely and voluntarily renounces the criminal purpose, not merely postponing or reacting to obstacles.
Factual impossibility
A circumstance unknown to the defendant makes completion impossible, such as an empty pocket or an unloaded gun; this is never a defense to attempt.
Legal impossibility
The defendant completes everything intended but the conduct is not a crime; pure legal impossibility remains a defense while hybrid claims are generally rejected.
People v. Jaffe
A buyer of goods he believed stolen was acquitted because the goods had lost their stolen character, an old hybrid impossibility ruling most modern codes reject.
Solicitation
Asking, encouraging, or commanding another to commit an offense with the purpose that it be committed; the crime is complete on the asking regardless of the response.
Merger of solicitation
Solicitation merges into the completed offense or into conspiracy once the solicited party agrees, so a defendant is not punished for both.
Conspiracy
An agreement between two or more persons to commit an unlawful act, with the intent to agree and the intent to achieve the object, plus an overt act in most jurisdictions.
Overt act requirement
Many statutes demand some act in furtherance of the agreement, though the act may be trivial and preparatory and need be committed by only one conspirator.
Pinkerton liability
A conspirator is liable for the reasonably foreseeable substantive crimes of co-conspirators committed in furtherance of the conspiracy, a doctrine the Model Penal Code rejects.
Wheel conspiracy
A structure with a central figure dealing with several spokes; a single conspiracy exists only if a rim of shared interest and awareness links the spokes together.
Chain conspiracy
A distribution structure where successive participants know their role depends on others up and down the line, supporting a single overarching agreement.
Kotteakos v. United States
Convictions were reversed where the proof showed many separate conspiracies through a common broker rather than the single conspiracy that was charged.
Wharton's rule
A limitation barring conspiracy charges where the target offense by definition requires two participants, such as bigamy or dueling, absent an additional party.
Accomplice liability
A person who aids, abets, encourages, or counsels the principal with the purpose of promoting or facilitating the offense is liable for the completed crime as a principal.
State v. Hayes
A feigned accomplice who did not share the criminal purpose could not be a principal, so the defendant who only encouraged him was not liable for the burglary.
Wilcox v. Jeffery
Attending and reporting on an unlawful performance amounted to encouragement, showing that even slight assistance can establish aiding and abetting.
Natural and probable consequences doctrine
A rule extending accomplice liability to further crimes that were a foreseeable outgrowth of the offense encouraged, rejected in the Model Penal Code and by a growing minority.