4 ms·

If you accepted money to kill yourself, the onus would be on the prosecutor to prove a crime was committed. A reasonable defense would be that you feared that i

If you accepted money to kill yourself, the onus would be on the prosecutor to prove a crime was committed. A reasonable defense would be that you feared that if you didn't pretend to carry out the murder, the buyer (who knew your identity) would find an actual hitman.

MacsHeadroom 13y ago
A reasonable defence would be not to say anything. There is no evidence that this person who was allegedly killed ever existed in the first place. The Canadian Investigators say that nobody by that name ever existed and that there were no homicides or deaths which they can attach to this alleged hit. You can't commit an impossible crime. I can't murder your sister if you don't have a sister. It's highly likely that both the hitman and the hit were the same FBI informant entrapping DPR.
- mbetter 13y ago
  > I can't murder your sister if you don't have a sister. But I believe you can conspire to murder my sister, even if I don't have a sister.
  - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    Perhaps. But against whom was a crime committed. If you pretend to have a sister and I order a hit on that figment of your imagination then have I committed a crime? So whilst there was conspiracy it was not against a person and there was never a plan to harm an actual person. Despite there being the mens rea in the conspirators there's no crime, just moral turpitude. It seems that if the conspiracy were against a person who never existed and were adjudged to be a crime that writers would be similarly guilty when they plan a storyline in which someone is purposefully killed. Of course there is a significant epistemological difference for the writer. Fascinating.
    - ostrakon 13y ago
      Think about it like this: In any given sting operation, the John gets arrested, bt there was never any prostitute. The arrest occurs on the basis that, if there were a prostitute, the John would participate in the exchange. Then, at that point, he's dragged before a judge or jury, and they don't really care about the crime, they just want this guy off the street based on the character assasination. The layman/plebian juror doesn't need to involve any sophisticated thought process, because his goal is to clock out of his "civic duty" by 5PM on the dot. The patrician judge is permitted the luxury of aloof detachment, and is a fallible human being. A person with a social life, biases and any other human weaknesses, despite whatever image or persona they may project into their social sphere of influence. It doesn't really matter whether the sting is a bomb plot, drug deal, or a setup for hookers, Johns and online chat room predators. The maguffin is there to demonstrate intent, and prove that police are doing there job, the streets are safer, when this slob gets thrown in jail, and branded with a scarlet letter. But the slob is real, and more often than not, simply being placed in the hot seat is enough for judge and jury to usually be swayed in favor of a conviction. It really doesn't take much for a person to get slapped with a jail sentence. Neither imaginary crimes nor genuine crimes weigh heavily on the mind of your typical juror. Or rather, to the juror, all crimes are essentially the same degree of fiction. They are tales of intrigue presented to strangers who play the role of critic for a day, while attending the performance of fatal charades.
      - Dylan16807 13y ago
        It's not really about intent, there has to be a real attempt to commit a crime for your standard sting situation. Drug stings will often go as far as waiting until after a crime has happened to do the arrest. What are you so bitter about?
      - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
        >In any given sting operation, the John gets arrested, bt there was never any prostitute. // I see where you're coming from however it is "soliciting" which is the crime and the perp commits that crime against someone - they just happen not to be a prostitute. At least that's how it plays out in the media. With the [attempted] assassination of an individual you can't have a sting because the main conspirator targets a specific individual [but you can have a sting on a conspiracy charge, so I see how it applies]. It's not like they find their target's not there and decide to just kill a random person. They are only ever concerned with killing a specific person. Now if that specific person doesn't exist then there can't be a killing. With the bomb plot, drug deal, prostitution, child abuser the targets are generalised. The particular nature of the stooge isn't important to the potential perpetrator. If I tell you there's a bank in my town, then we plan a heist, then it turns out that there's no bank. What crime have you committed? [I'm not totally sold on this line I'm presenting incidentally - but thanks for the response anyhow.]
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > There is no evidence that this person who was allegedly killed ever existed in the first place. Conspiracy to commit murder doesn't require an actual murder to be committed, so, no, this isn't really all that relevant to the charge.
  - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    But presumably it requires there to be an actual person who was conspired against.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      Not in US law as far as I know, though there was a brief moment where that seems to have been the case in English law (between the Criminal Law Act of 1977 -- or at least, its application in DPP v. Nock, 1978 -- and the amendment to that act in the Criminal Attempts Act of 1981.) An agreement between two or more people to commit an act which would be unlawful if the agreed-to end was realized and any one of those people taking even one concrete step toward putting the agreement into effect makes a conspiracy. (Except under the separate US federal narcotics conspiracy law, where, IIRC, the concrete act is not required.)
      - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
        The question I guess is how you can take a concrete step, an actus reus, towards putting an agreement in to effect wherein the target of the action is entirely fictitious. >an act which would be unlawful if the agreed-to end was realized // If the person on whom the hit is called is fictional the agreed to end can't be realised. Even if it were in some way able to be realised [you pretend the person exists or don't know until the end of the act] the action itself wouldn't be unlawful except in and of itself. For example if you blew up a bridge to kill a person, but the person was made-up all along then you'd still be guilty of criminal damage and potentially of injury to bystanders and such but you wouldn't be guilty of murder. Not even attempted murder [IMV] as there was no person you tried to murder, you tried to murder an idea of a person. Like I said in another post I see the moral deficiencies [evidenced by the mens rea (guilty mind)] in a person willing to be involved in such a conspiracy but it still appears to me to lack an actus reus which AFAICT is a cornerstone of criminal law based on the English tradition. Your postscript on USA federal narcotics law is interesting - doesn't this mean that if you plan something with no intent that you'd be considered guilty. Would Vince Gilligan not then be guilty of drug crimes as he has planned many illegal activities they just apparently all lacked corresponding actions.

MacsHeadroom 13y ago

A reasonable defence would be not to say anything. There is no evidence that this person who was allegedly killed ever existed in the first place. The Canadian Investigators say that nobody by that name ever existed and that there were no homicides or deaths which they can attach to this alleged hit. You can't commit an impossible crime. I can't murder your sister if you don't have a sister. It's highly likely that both the hitman and the hit were the same FBI informant entrapping DPR.

mbetter 13y ago
> I can't murder your sister if you don't have a sister. But I believe you can conspire to murder my sister, even if I don't have a sister.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  Perhaps. But against whom was a crime committed. If you pretend to have a sister and I order a hit on that figment of your imagination then have I committed a crime? So whilst there was conspiracy it was not against a person and there was never a plan to harm an actual person. Despite there being the mens rea in the conspirators there's no crime, just moral turpitude. It seems that if the conspiracy were against a person who never existed and were adjudged to be a crime that writers would be similarly guilty when they plan a storyline in which someone is purposefully killed. Of course there is a significant epistemological difference for the writer. Fascinating.
  - ostrakon 13y ago
    Think about it like this: In any given sting operation, the John gets arrested, bt there was never any prostitute. The arrest occurs on the basis that, if there were a prostitute, the John would participate in the exchange. Then, at that point, he's dragged before a judge or jury, and they don't really care about the crime, they just want this guy off the street based on the character assasination. The layman/plebian juror doesn't need to involve any sophisticated thought process, because his goal is to clock out of his "civic duty" by 5PM on the dot. The patrician judge is permitted the luxury of aloof detachment, and is a fallible human being. A person with a social life, biases and any other human weaknesses, despite whatever image or persona they may project into their social sphere of influence. It doesn't really matter whether the sting is a bomb plot, drug deal, or a setup for hookers, Johns and online chat room predators. The maguffin is there to demonstrate intent, and prove that police are doing there job, the streets are safer, when this slob gets thrown in jail, and branded with a scarlet letter. But the slob is real, and more often than not, simply being placed in the hot seat is enough for judge and jury to usually be swayed in favor of a conviction. It really doesn't take much for a person to get slapped with a jail sentence. Neither imaginary crimes nor genuine crimes weigh heavily on the mind of your typical juror. Or rather, to the juror, all crimes are essentially the same degree of fiction. They are tales of intrigue presented to strangers who play the role of critic for a day, while attending the performance of fatal charades.
    - Dylan16807 13y ago
      It's not really about intent, there has to be a real attempt to commit a crime for your standard sting situation. Drug stings will often go as far as waiting until after a crime has happened to do the arrest. What are you so bitter about?
    - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
      >In any given sting operation, the John gets arrested, bt there was never any prostitute. // I see where you're coming from however it is "soliciting" which is the crime and the perp commits that crime against someone - they just happen not to be a prostitute. At least that's how it plays out in the media. With the [attempted] assassination of an individual you can't have a sting because the main conspirator targets a specific individual [but you can have a sting on a conspiracy charge, so I see how it applies]. It's not like they find their target's not there and decide to just kill a random person. They are only ever concerned with killing a specific person. Now if that specific person doesn't exist then there can't be a killing. With the bomb plot, drug deal, prostitution, child abuser the targets are generalised. The particular nature of the stooge isn't important to the potential perpetrator. If I tell you there's a bank in my town, then we plan a heist, then it turns out that there's no bank. What crime have you committed? [I'm not totally sold on this line I'm presenting incidentally - but thanks for the response anyhow.]
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
dragonwriter 13y ago
> There is no evidence that this person who was allegedly killed ever existed in the first place. Conspiracy to commit murder doesn't require an actual murder to be committed, so, no, this isn't really all that relevant to the charge.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  But presumably it requires there to be an actual person who was conspired against.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    Not in US law as far as I know, though there was a brief moment where that seems to have been the case in English law (between the Criminal Law Act of 1977 -- or at least, its application in DPP v. Nock, 1978 -- and the amendment to that act in the Criminal Attempts Act of 1981.) An agreement between two or more people to commit an act which would be unlawful if the agreed-to end was realized and any one of those people taking even one concrete step toward putting the agreement into effect makes a conspiracy. (Except under the separate US federal narcotics conspiracy law, where, IIRC, the concrete act is not required.)
    - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
      The question I guess is how you can take a concrete step, an actus reus, towards putting an agreement in to effect wherein the target of the action is entirely fictitious. >an act which would be unlawful if the agreed-to end was realized // If the person on whom the hit is called is fictional the agreed to end can't be realised. Even if it were in some way able to be realised [you pretend the person exists or don't know until the end of the act] the action itself wouldn't be unlawful except in and of itself. For example if you blew up a bridge to kill a person, but the person was made-up all along then you'd still be guilty of criminal damage and potentially of injury to bystanders and such but you wouldn't be guilty of murder. Not even attempted murder [IMV] as there was no person you tried to murder, you tried to murder an idea of a person. Like I said in another post I see the moral deficiencies [evidenced by the mens rea (guilty mind)] in a person willing to be involved in such a conspiracy but it still appears to me to lack an actus reus which AFAICT is a cornerstone of criminal law based on the English tradition. Your postscript on USA federal narcotics law is interesting - doesn't this mean that if you plan something with no intent that you'd be considered guilty. Would Vince Gilligan not then be guilty of drug crimes as he has planned many illegal activities they just apparently all lacked corresponding actions.