Legal Question in Criminal Law in Michigan

Re: Concpericy

A conspiracy is:

1) an agreement

2) between two or more people

3) to do an illegal act (or to do a legal thing in an illegal way)

4) and there is some overt act done towards doing that illegal act.

Therefore ... it takes more than one person for a conspiracy to exist. A single person can not creat a conspiracy by coming up with a plan to do a "one-man job".

Therefore ... two or more people have to AGREE to do something that is illegal. No agreement? Then no conspiracy.

Therefore ... if it's "all talk and no action", it's not a conspiracy. One of the co-conspirators has to do something towards accomplishing that illegal act. Before that overt act occurs, someone in the agreement can back out and be out of the conspiracy (but has to let the others know about the change in heart). But, once that overt act occurs (and the other elements of conspiracy are in place), then the crime of Conspiracy to Commit [insert name of crime here] has been committed. End of story.

The conspiracy is a separate crime from the "real" crime they all agreed to commit. The crime that the conspirators agree to commit does not have to be committed for the Conspiracy case to be valid. For example, if 2 people agree to rob a bank and one of the guys gets the gun they're going to use, or lines up the get-away car, or they start driving to the bank, or another act in furtherance of setting up the robbery occurs, then the conspiracy is accomplished. If the robbery is foiled by the bank security, or the bad guys get cold feet, the conspiracy can still be prosecuted.

Re: Conspiracy

A conspiracy is an agreement of two or more people to do something. A criminal conspiracy is an agreement of two of more people to commit a crime. Generally, in Minnesota, the prosecution must also have evidence of the defendant's "act in furtherance of" the criminal conspiracy.