Court Opinion

ID: 9728341
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:05:36.208185+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:47.867237
License: Public Domain

CONOVER, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The jewelry King purchased in the reverse sting operation was not stolen, it had been purchased by the Indianapolis Police Department. Thus, it was legally impossible to convict King of receiving stolen property, as the majority notes. The net result? King was found guilty of attempting to commit a crime it was legally impossible to commit.
While it is true the attempt statute as to impossibility reads:
(b) it is no defense that, because of a misapprehension. of the cireumstances, it would have been impossible for the accused person to commit the crime attempted[,]
IND.CODE 85-41-5-1(b), I believe a careful reading of this statute indicates the legislature intended subsection (b) to apply only to cases of "factual" not "legal" impossibility.
Under the statute, the crime of attempt occurs when a person acting with appropriate culpability takes a "substantial step toward commission of the crime," and the attempt is classified as a "felony or a misdemeanor of the same class as the crime attempted", cf., IC 85-41-5-l(a), King cannot be guilty of attempt here because it was legally impossible to commit theft, receiving stolen goods. If he cannot commit the crime contemplated, it follows, his attempt to commit such crime can be classified neither as a felony nor a misdemeanor, thus his attempt cannot be classified as a crime.
My reading of Justice Hunter's opinion in Zickefoose v. State, (1979) 270 Ind. 618, 388 N.E.2d 507 supports the position I take in this dissent, I believe. Justice Hunter said:
It is not necessary that there be a present ability to complete the erime, nor is it necessary that the crime be fuctually possible. When the defendant has done all that he believes necessary to cause the particular result, regardless of what is actually possible under existing circumstances he has committed an attempt.... (Emphasis supplied.)
ZAickefoose, 388 N.E.2d at 510. Zickefoose dealt with factual not legal impossibility. Thus, when a pick-pocket puts his hand into an empty pocket with intent to steal, he is guilty of attempt, even though it was factually impossible to commit the crime. However, he is not guilty of attempt if he puts his hand into a public trash basket with like intent because it is legally impossible to steal that which has been abandoned.
I recognize the position I take is at variance not only with the majority but with the result reached in State v. Gillespie, (1981) Ind.App., 428 N.E.2d 1338 and cases there cited. However, I believe the legislature intended only to encompass within the limits of IC 85-41-5-1(b) factual not legal impossibility. The potential for future mischief seems almost boundless unless that distinction is made.1 If we do not do so, we *1206will take a long step down the road to thought control.
For those reasons, I respectfully dissent.

. Aldisert, Circuit Judge, discussed the same concern, saying
Indeed, though it is not before us, we do evidence some concern that the proposed changes in the federal criminal code seem to fashion a new crime where the critical element to be proved is mens rea simpliciter. We detect the total lack of objective guidelines in the presentation of such proof or a defense. While mens rea is certainly within one's control it is not subject to direct proof; it is proved by circumstantial evidence only. More important, it is not subject to direct refutation. It is the subject of inference and speculation. We perceive the danger of potential abuse where the circumstances admit to very little objective measurement. More important, we are unwilling as a court to legislate by judicial fiat a crime consistent only with thought processes, as this is remi*1206niscent of the German law of the Nazi period "that anything is punishable if it is deserving of punishment according 'to the fundamental conceptions of a penal law and sound popular feeling'" HL.A. Hart, Law, Liberty and Morality, 12 (1963).
U.S. v. Berrigan, (1973) 482 F.2d 171, 189, n. 39.