Conspiracy Is as Bad as Committing a Crime
Video Transcribed: Hi, I am a lawyer in Wagoner County. My name is Stuart Ericson. I’m going to talk a little bit about the crime of conspiracy right now.
A conspiracy is basically an agreement between two or more people to commit a crime. So it’s not the fact that the crime is committed, but there’s an agreement, a plan between two or more people with the intent to go forward, to commit acts, to commit a crime. Now to be convicted of conspiracy, some overt act must be performed after the agreement is made. Again, thinking about it, we don’t have thought crimes, at least not yet in America. So, some action has to be performed.
Now, an overt act is one that furthers the aim of the conspiracy. So if there’s a conspiracy to commit armed robbery at a pizza place, and the agreement is made between two or more people, the two or more people get in a car, and the agreement is to use guns to do this. The car is stopped to get guns. That’s going to cover the conspiracy because again, some overt act was committed. The two or more people got in a car, they went to a location, got a gun, and headed to the pizza place. So that is some overt act. And of course, it does further the aim of the conspiracy, which is to commit an armed robbery.
Now, the co-conspirators are guilty of the acts of their fellow conspirators because of course, it’s in furtherance of the plan that everybody agreed upon. Also guilty of any foreseeable consequences of that conspiracy. So if the plan is to rob Mazzio’s by gunpoint, it’s pretty clear that a foreseeable consequence could be that that gun is, especially if the agreement is to take a loaded gun and it’s known that that is part of the plan with the intent to take a loaded gun to commit a robbery, it’s pretty foreseeable that that gun might be used and somebody might be shot and killed during that. So you could be guilty of the actions of somebody else in your conspiracy and what they did, as long as it’s in further of that conspiracy. That’s a big deal.
So again, a conspiracy has a lot of aspects to it, but that’s basically what it is. If you have any more questions about that or if that ever comes up, feel free to reach out to me, Oklahoma criminal defense attorney Stuart Ericson, at wagonerlawyer.com.
