> The FBI works undercover on an average of 70 to 90 murder-for-hire cases a year. According to bureau press releases, recent quoted fees have ranged from $25,000 to kill a spouse to $600 to kill a girlfriend ... A few years ago, the Australian Institute of Criminology and South Australia's major crime-investigation branch studied 163 attempted and actual contract killings between 1989 and 2002. The average rate received was 12,700 Australian dollars, or about $8,254. The lowest was 380 AUD (about $250), and the highest was 76,000 AUD (about $49,400).
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...
Supposing AB had real information that would be harmful to DPR if released, it's in DPR's interest to prevent this release. One major risk is that even if he pays, he is still susceptible to future extortion. His approach sends a message to AB (true or not) that he is a casual killer, and that it would be an unwise risk to attempt this stunt a second time.
It also further implicates AB in DPR's crimes: in the same way that DPR will have great trouble explaining in court that he was not actually arranging a murder but deterring an extortionist, it would be unwise to try to argue in court that one accepted money to commit a murder, but is innocent because the murder was not actually performed due to a complicated backstory.
Also, the extended negotiation provides DPR more opportunity to discover more information about his adversary --- rather like the 'try to keep them on the line so we can trace the call' trope. It seems likely that if there is any substance to the accusation, that AB is a Silk Road seller and not a third party. Perhaps this dance helps DPR to gain more information so as to take future action against this seller? Or buys time so as to warn others that their buyer information is compromised?
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.
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.
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.)
>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.
Yes, that's the impossibility issue, which, as I've noted, is not generally in US law (and similar, but for a 3-4 year window ending in 1981, English law) relevant to whether the crime of conspiracy has been committed. The fact that it can't be realized is irrelevant to whether it would be a crime if it was realized.
> it still appears to me to lack an actus reus which AFAICT is a cornerstone of criminal law based on the English tradition.
The actus reus in conspiracy (both under the common law and the generally applicable modern English and American statutory provisions) is comprised of two things: an agreement among multiple people, and a concrete action directed toward putting the agreement into effect. Those are both acts, not mental states.
> 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.
No, removing one of the required acts doesn't change the mens rea requirements, nor does it change the other required act; one person planning is not conspiracy (even under the federal narcotics provision that remove the second element.) Two or more people agreeing to some end whose realization would be another crime is the element that is required.
But I believe you can conspire to murder my sister, even if I don't have a sister.
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.
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.
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.]
What are you so bitter about?
As with any crime, it was committed against the State.
> If you pretend to have a sister and I order a hit on that figment of your imagination then have I committed a crime?
Yes.
> So whilst there was conspiracy it was not against a person
In the US (and, for that matter, most of the rest of the world) crimes don't have to be "against a person". England went through a few years in the late 1970s where a conspiracy to commit an impossible act was not a crime, but specifically amended the 1977 law which a 1978 court case found implied that effect to remove it in 1981; to my knowledge the impossibility of the prohibited agreed-to act has never been a bar to conspiracy convictions in the US.
> 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.
A writer planning a story line involves neither two or more people agreeing to commit an unlawful act nor one of taking a concrete action to put that agreement into effect, and so contains neither of the elements of the general crime of conspiracy, independently of the impossibility issue. So, no, they wouldn't be guilty of conspiracy, independently of the issue at hand.
The game theory of scam artists is really simple: your expected probability of scam N+1 working goes way the heck up if you've successfully worked that mark in scam N. That's why you can literally find people selling lists of folks who've fallen for 419 scams.
Edit: To to clear, DPR could have well assumed it was the same party and figured this was one way to negotiate, instead of saying "ok, how about $200K instead of $500K"?
I guess it depends on whether you're factoring in the "on trial for attempted murder" angle.
After all, if friendlychemist did in fact have information on thousands of drug dealers, he ought to be able to get a pretty good asking price from the government, so why would he even contact Ulbricht in this scenario?
What DPR should have done is had his team of admins hellban the guy everytime he tried to spam the forums with names so he could waste his time however DPR never seemed to give a shit about the forum even though it was his brand being represented there.
This is why Max Vision spied on all his buyers/users because if they ever tried to extort him in the same manner he would promptly reveal that he's been inside their systems for months and knew exactly who they were.
It's shorter, and it has details on a second murder-for-hire plot.
(Alice claims to owe money to Bob, who Alice represents as a drug dealer. Alice threatens to expose SR users unless DPR pays Alice's debt with Bob. DPR asks to speak to Bob. Bob messages DPR. DPR attempts to recruit Bob to be a drug dealer on SR and, separately, asks if Bob can arrange for the murder of Alice. Bob quotes a price, which DPR says is twice the last price that DPR has arranged a murder at. DPR eventually agrees to the price, pays, and instructs Bob to take a photograph of the corpse with a random alphanumeric string in the frame, to ascertain that the photograph was indeed produced after the request. Bob reports that the murder is complete and sends the photograph, which DPR accepts as genuine. The affiant believes the likely conclusion -- that Alice and Bob are the same person and that DPR has been successfully extorted to the tune of $150,000 or so.)