MPC Conspiracy Forum

[sfdreaming09]

1.) If you agree with 3 people to commit the exact same crime, is this one or three conspiracies? Or does the prosecutor get to choose?
2.) If A is selling to B & C each of whom are selling to three additional different people: is A guilty of 8 conspiracies? 2? 1? My question here is also, how far down the line do you go? What if each of those 8 people sold it to three more, who sold it to three more, and so on? It just seems absurd that A could be found guilty of thousands of separate conspiracies.

Can anybody give a straightforward way to ascertain the lines of a conspiracy?

[GMVarun]

1) One crime, Look at 5.03(3) (keep in mind committing a conspiracy is a separate crime - as opposed to complicity which is a different way of committing an underlying crime, not a separate crime itself)

2) this should also be one under 5.03(3) - but this is also setup to be a perfect RICO (which is obviously not MPC) problem. since A is part of this criminal enterprise.

[sfdreaming09]

Thanks for the reply. And ya, I'm aware that conspiracies are separate crimes (though we didn't study RICO this sem), but I dont think 5.03(3) language is entirely clear on this subject. Are you assuming that this was one big conspiracy (i.e. B and C knew each other, or at least, if not their precise identity, knew of the existence of another party? What if B or C had absolutely no idea that there was anything illegal going on except what was happening between them and A?

The language in the provision is exceptionally vague. The language is clear enough if you're trying to figure out WHO one person conspired with, but definitely not clear re: how to divide the lines between the people. One book I just looked at said the prosecutor has wide discretion in shaping the contours of a conspiracy charge but I don't know how much to trust that.

[iShotFirst]

As I understand it A would be guilty of 2 conspiracies, one chain conspiracy starting with B, and one chain starting with C.

The question of how far does it go doesnt affect the crim liability of A, it affects how many people will get caught in the chain of each of those separate conspiracies. Its not like A has an agreement with some guy way down the line. But A and the guy way down the line could be charged as all part of the same conspiracy. The government is more likely to want A in jail(as the originator), so they would probably charge him with the two chain conspiracies to add jail time. Otherwise if B and C knew of each other or had reason to know of each other, they could charge everyone in one big conspiracy charge.