Opinion ID: 849175
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Conspiracy Statute

Text: The Feola Court then turned to consider whether the rule should be different where persons conspire to commit the substantive offense at hand. Id. at 686, 95 S.Ct. 1255. With regard to the conspiracy offense, the defendant specifically urged the Court to conclude that the Government must show a degree of criminal intent in the conspiracy count greater than is necessary to convict for the substantive offense; he urges that even though it is not necessary to show that he was aware of the official identity of his assaulted victims in order to find him guilty of assaulting federal officers,... the Government nonetheless must show that he was aware that his intended victims were undercover agents, if it is successfully to prosecute him for conspiracy to assault federal agents. Id. at 686-87, 95 S.Ct. 1255. To resolve whether the defendant was correct in his analysis, the Court examined the text of the conspiracy statute. It explained that, if a knowledge requirement exists, it would have to be found within the text of the conspiracy statute, 18 USC § 371. The conspiracy statute at issue in Feola made it unlawful to conspire ... to commit any offense against the United States. Feola, at 687, 95 S.Ct. 1255. On the basis of this language, the Court stated that [a] natural reading of these words would be that since one can violate a criminal statute simply by engaging in the forbidden conduct, a conspiracy to commit that offense is nothing more than an agreement to engage in the prohibited conduct. Id. In other words, the Court found that there is nothing on the face of the conspiracy statute that would seem to require that those agreeing to the assault have a greater degree of knowledge. Id. at 687, 95 S.Ct. 1255. Similar to the federal conspiracy statute, Michigan's conspiracy statute prohibits an individual from conspir[ing] ... to commit an offense prohibited by law.... M.C.L. § 750.157a. A review of the language of the conspiracy statute reveals that a conspiracy to commit an offense prohibited by law requires nothing more than: 1) an intent to agree; and 2) an intent to engage in the prohibited conduct. See also People v. Atley, 392 Mich. 298, 310, 220 N.W.2d 465 (1974). In Justice, this Court apparently agreed with this general rule. As noted previously, the Justice Court stated that in order to bind defendant over on the two counts of conspiracy there must be probable cause to believe that defendant and the coconspirators shared the specific intent to accomplish the substantive offenses charged.  Justice, supra, at 337, 562 N.W.2d 652 (emphasis added); see also id. at 345-347, 562 N.W.2d 652. The Justice Court accordingly proceeded to set forth the substantive offense at issue, M.C.L. § 333.7401. Then, without analysis of the substantive offense, Justice inexplicably concluded that the defendant [must] possess[] the specific intent to deliver the statutory minimum as charged.... Id. at 349, 562 N.W.2d 652. Such a conclusion, in my judgment, was erroneous because, as noted previously, the language of M.C.L.§ 333.7401, does not require that a defendant harbor the intent to deliver an amount that falls within a particular statutory range. [8] The majority asserts that, by concluding that a defendant need not possess the intent to deliver the statutory minimum as charged, I am convert[ing] a specific intent crime into a general intent crime. Respectfully, I disagree. Again, conspiracy involves: i) an intent to agree, and ii) an intent to engage in prohibited conduct. One of these intents may exist without the other. LaFave, supra at 76. Clearly, two or more individuals may intend to agree on some matter without also having an intent to engage in prohibited conduct. For example, A and B agree to burn certain property and A knows the property belongs to C, but B believes that the property belongs to A himself. In this scenario, there is no intent to engage in prohibited conduct on B's part because B believes that the property belongs to A. In the instant case, however, the conspirators clearly had the intent to agree and the additional intent to engage in prohibited conductthe delivery of a controlled substance. Thus, as in Feola, the specific intent attributes of a conspiracy remain intact.