Court Opinion

ID: 9837015
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 03:16:00.100228+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:19.828366
License: Public Domain

*384EVERETT, Senior Judge
(concurring in the result):
I concur in the conclusion that appellant’s pleas were provident. However, I reach that result by a slightly different route. In my view, the facts relayed in the stipulation would be insufficient to establish guilt if only appellant had been involved. Mere preparation, rather than an attempt, would be proven. Cf. United States v. Byrd, 24 MJ 286 (CMA 1987); United States v. Presto, 24 MJ 350 (CMA 1987). Byrd also makes clear that, if the stipulated facts show no more than preparation, a plea of guilty predicated on that stipulation is improvident and must be set aside.
In this case, however, the stipulation reveals that not only appellant, but also another soldier was involved in the larcenous scheme. Indeed, the same stipulation was the basis for appellant’s pleas of guilty to conspiracy to commit larceny — the same larceny that was the subject of the attempt. Where a conspiracy has been entered to commit a crime, and acts have been performed by the conspirators to achieve the criminal purpose of the conspiracy, a conspirator who personally has committed some of these acts may be guilty of an attempt, even though these same acts might be insufficient to constitute an attempt if no conspiracy was involved. To me, the agreement with another to commit a crime has great significance in itself for the purpose of demonstrating that someone has moved beyond “mere preparation” to attempt. Certainly, the agreement evidences the seriousness of criminal purpose on appellant’s part.
Under § 5.05(3) of the ALI Model Penal Code, conspiracy and attempt are both inchoate crimes, and an accused may not be convicted of both a conspiracy and an attempt when their purpose was the same. See ALI Model Penal Code and Commentaries 484 (1985). Military justice prescribes no such flat prohibition against conviction for both the conspiracy and the attempt. Moreover, no issue of multiplicity has been raised, and even if appellant’s convictions of both conspiracy and attempt were multiplicious, any effect thereof on sentence would be unlikely. Accordingly, I concur in the judgment.