Draggingtree Posted October 3, 2015 Share Posted October 3, 2015 Argument preview: A brain-teaser for criminal conspiracy law By Rory Little on Oct 2, 2015 at 4:20 pm The Court’s first criminal case of the Term presents a real brain teaser: may a defendant be convicted of conspiracy to commit an offense, when he has the intent necessary to commit the offense but his co-conspirator does not? The case arises in the specific context of the unusual federal Hobbs Act extortion statute, and getting to the specific question initially requires some complex explanation. But unless I misunderstand it, the general question is as old as the common law. The facts and the law In Ocasio v. United States, set for argument on Tuesday October 6, the defendant was charged with extortion by a public official “under color of official right” – an offense that would more commonly be described as accepting a bribe. Ocasio was a Baltimore Police Department officer (“BPD”), and along with a number of other officers, he was charged with accepting “kickbacks” from a local auto-body repair shop (owned by the Mejia brothers) in return for “steering” cars involved in traffic accidents to the body shop. http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/10/argument-preview-a-brain-teaser-for-criminal-conspiracy-law/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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