Opinion ID: 849175
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Purposes Underlying Conspiracy Law

Text: Finally, the Feola Court emphasized that requiring knowledge of the attendant circumstances would be wholly inconsistent with the purposes of the conspiracy statute. Id. at 693, 95 S.Ct. 1255. The Court, first, opined that conspiracy law serves as a means to protect society from the dangers incident to group criminal activity. Id.; see also LaFave, supra at 68. Given the level of criminal intent necessary to sustain conviction for the substantive offense, the act of agreement to commit the crime is no less opprobrious and no less dangerous because of the absence of knowledge of a fact unnecessary to the formation of criminal intent. Indeed, unless imposition of an antifederal knowledge requirement serves social purposes external to the law of conspiracy of which we are unaware, its imposition here would serve only to make it more difficult to obtain convictions on charges of conspiracy, a policy with no apparent purpose. [ Feola, at 693-694, 95 S.Ct. 1255.] Similarly, Michigan's conspiracy statute serves as a means of addressing the special dangers associated with group activity. [C]ollective criminal agreement partnership in crimepresents a greater potential threat to the public than individual delicts. Concerted action both increases the likelihood that the criminal object will be successfully attained and decreases the probability that the individuals involved will depart from their path of criminality. Group association for criminal purposes often, if not normally, makes possible the attainment of ends more complex than those which one criminal could accomplish. Nor is the danger of a conspiratorial group limited to the particular end toward which it has embarked. Combination in crime makes more likely the commission of crimes unrelated to the original purpose for which the group was formed. In sum, the danger which a conspiracy generates is not confined to the substantive offense which is the immediate aim of the enterprise. [ People v. Denio, 454 Mich. 691, 704, 564 N.W.2d 13 (1997), quoting People v. Carter, 415 Mich. 558, 570, 330 N.W.2d 314 (1982).] Because Michigan conspiracy law also seeks to protect society from the danger of concerted action, it is not relevant whether each defendant has knowledge that the amount of the controlled substance fell within a particular statutory range. The agreement to commit a drug offense, and an act in furtherance of that agreement, is no less opprobrious and no less dangerous because of the absence of knowledge of a fact unnecessary to the formation of criminal intent. Feola, supra, at 693, 95 S.Ct. 1255. A participant in a conspiracy knows that delivery of any amount of drugs is unlawful. Imposition of a knowledge requirement would only serve, without apparent rationale, to make it more difficult to obtain conspiracy convictions that are above the levels of punishment for the lowest level delivery offense. Further, the Feola Court observed that conspiracy law also serves as a means of intervention against individuals who manifest a disposition to criminality. Feola, supra at 694, 95 S.Ct. 1255; see also La-Fave, supra at 68. [A]lthough the law generally makes criminal only antisocial conduct, at some point in the continuum between preparation and consummation, the likelihood of a commission of an act is sufficiently great to justify intervention. Feola, supra at 694, 95 S.Ct. 1255. At this point [c]riminal intent has crystallized, and the likelihood of actual, fulfilled commission warrants preventive action. Id. Because of this, the Supreme Court again did not see how the imposition of a knowledge element would relate rationally to this purpose. Given the level of intent needed to carry out the substantive offense, we fail to see how the agreement is any less blameworthy or constitutes less of a danger to society solely because the participants are unaware which body of law they intend to violate. Id. Thus, the Court stated that imposition of a knowledge requirement would render it more difficult to serve the purpose behind the law of conspiracy without serving any other apparent social policy. The Court concluded its analysis by expressly rejecting a result that would, in the context of a conspiracy to commit a federal offense, require that a defendant have knowledge of the attendant circumstances, instead holding that where knowledge of the facts giving rise to federal jurisdiction is not necessary for conviction of a substantive offense embodying a mens rea requirement, such knowledge is equally irrelevant to questions of responsibility for conspiracy to commit that offense. Id. at 696, 95 S.Ct. 1255. As in Feola, conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance, and an act in furtherance of this objective, entail a sufficient threat to the social order to be sanctionable in the manner determined by the Legislature. [10] The fact that a conspirator is unaware that the amount of the controlled substance fell within a particular statutory range does not make the agreement any less threatening, or the conduct of the conspirator any less blameworthy. It is enough that defendant or a coconspirator acted in furtherance of their agreement to deliver a controlled substance. Further, it is important to highlight that the agreement necessary in a conspiracy is not akin to the meeting of the minds premises of traditional contract law. La-Fave, supra at 71. It is not necessary that each conspirator have knowledge of each of the details of the object offense. Id.; People v. Cooper, 326 Mich. 514, 521, 40 N.W.2d 708 (1950) (recognizing that [i]t is not necessary to a conviction for conspiracy that each defendant have knowledge of all its ramifications). A mere tacit understanding about the object offense will suffice. LaFave, supra at 71. In other words, all that is needed is a generalized agreement to engage in an unlawful objective. Marcus, supra at 2-4. There need not be a specific agreement to commit a 200-gram, a 400-gram or a 600-gram conspiracy, nor will the law engage in mind reading in an effort to determine the innermost strategic objectives of each of the individual coconspirators and punish a single conspiracy with multiple levels of punishment depending upon the outcome of such mind reading. The need only for generalized agreement is premised on the fact that conspiracies are inherently clandestine in nature. Because of this secret nature, individual coconspirators may have relatively little knowledge of the conduct or actions of even their own coconspirators; indeed, efforts may frequently be undertaken to limit the dissemination of information concerning strategies and tactics on a need to know basis. Thus, in a conspiracy to deliver case, such as the instant one, all that the prosecutor would need to show regarding a defendant's intent is a generalized agreement to deliver a controlled substance, i.e., the unlawful objective. That the amount falls within a particular statutory range is the sort of detail that is simply not required to be known by a defendant who enters into the criminal agreement that constitutes the conspiracy. Thus, because the crime of conspiracy focuses on the formation of criminal intent in pursuit of a substantive criminal offense, and because a defendant need not know each of the attendant details of the conspiracy, imposition of a knowledge requirement, a requirement not within the plain language of the conspiracy (or delivery) statute, would undermine the early intervention premises of conspiracy law. In conclusion, I believe the Justice Court impermissibly expanded the plain language of both the delivery statute and the conspiracy statute to require a higher level of culpability on the part of a defendant than that embodied in those statutes. There is nothing within the text of either of these statutes that would compel a finding that a defendant must have knowledge of the amount of the controlled substance in a conspiracy to deliver charge. Thus, I respectfully disagree with the majority's statement that  Justice properly concluded that knowledge of the amount of a controlled substance is an element of the crime of conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance and that this holding is consistent with a correct interpretation of our controlled substance and conspiracy statutes. Op., at 551.