They were actually all acquitted by a lower court years ago and the prosecutor had to appeal to get a guilty verdict this year.

I believe there was some technicality that made proving intent difficult - the original contract was vague enough that the defence could argue that killing was never the plan and they only wanted to intimidate the victim enough to drive him out of town, and somehow the message got distorted down the chain of outsourcing to become a hit which was never carried out anyway.

I guess the difference here is that none of them actually attempted it, maybe it was a conspiracy charge.

Whaddaya mean, none of them attempted it? Four of them hired a hitman to do it! That's not attempted murder for you? :-O

I think that would still count as just conspiracy to commit murder. Not a good thing to do by any means, but not everyone follows through on their plans, so it's a lesser crime.

An attempt likely requires an actual failed attack against the target. It's much more severe.

EDIT: On second thought, I can see how you could consider hiring a hitman as an attempted attack, since once you have agreed upon the hit, the "weapon" has in effect been "fired".

Based on watching Law and Order back in the day they seem to portray hiring a hitman as first degree murder in NY at least.

_Attempted_. Just like shooting a guy and missing is attempted murder, not murder.

Intent. Hiring a hitman is like pulling the trigger.