Koufax said:
It's been almost 40 years since I took criminal law and that was in another state, so pardon me if I am misguided. I was taught that being part of a conspiracy to commit a crime that was actually committed is every bit as serious as having committed the crime directly. Is that true? If so, how does it matter who pulled the trigger? It appears that AH was not only part of the conspiracy, he was the mastermind (to the extent such a grandiose term can be used to describe what happened). So if the victim was murdered and someone else pulled the trigger, isn't AH in doo-doo just as deeply as if he had pulled the trigger himself?
Hadn't seen this answered, but I think it's correct. There are two concepts of conspiracy. First, "conspiracy" is a stand-alone crime. It is generally charged when the conspiracy is foiled before it reaches its objective, but can also be charged as a separate offense. So, for example, if three people get together in a bugged warehouse and plan a murder, and take a substantial step toward committing the murder (buying a gun), and the cops bust them at that point and use the recording, they can be charged with conspiracy to commit murder right then even though nobody got killed.
But I think the second type of "conspiracy" is the type you're talking about. It is a legal concept (which may or may not be separately charged) by which one person can be held criminally responsible for the acts of another person, as though he did those acts himself. So, if you're part of a conspiracy, and one of your co-conspirator does something illegal, you can be charged as though you did it. There are limits, though -- the scope of what you can be charged with depends on the scope of the conspiracy. You're only responsible for stuff your co-conspirator does in furtherance of the conspiracy that you agreed to or that is a foreseeable and nature consequence of the conspiracy.
So, if three guys conspire to kill a guy, it doesn't matter who pulls the trigger. Similarly, if three guys agree to commit a violent crime, like rape or arson or something like that, but not specifically to kill someone, but one of the conspirators kills someone during the commission of the felony, all three are likely going to be liable for some sort of homicide crime as a natural consequence of the conspiracy. Similarly, if three guys agree to beat a guy, and the beating is so bad that he dies, they likely all will be guilty of some sort of homicide crime because when you beat someone, it's foreseeable you could kill him. But imagine that they decide they are going to beat him, and one goes nuts and shoots him before the beating -- are the other two liable? Tough call. Probably not. So, back to the AH case -- the prosecutor would have to show a conspiracy to commit murder to get all 3 on murder if the shooter cannot be determined. If the prosecutor cannot show a conspiracy to commit murder, the exact nature of the conspiracy would become very important. If it's a conspiracy to shoot him but not kill him, all three would likely be guilt of murder. If it's a conspiracy to scare him, then the two non-shooters would potentially not be guilty of murder.
Note that a conspiracy can be extremely quick. It's not the kind of thing where you have to be sitting around a table discussing it and then you go do it later, like in the Sopranos. It can happen in two seconds, immediately before the crime. "We gonna do this?" "Yeah, let's do it." Boom. That's probably enough for the non-shooter to be charged with conspiracy. There's also felony murder, which is another possibility here for the non-shooters (if there were any non-shooters), depending on whether the encounter turned into a kidnapping or something else.
