Under California PEN 182, if you agree or conspire with one or more individuals to commit a crime, and one of the conspirators or “partners in crime” acts in furtherance or continuance of the criminal objective, you could be charged with conspiracy. Authorities have recognized that criminal acts involving several parties in planning and execution are harder to prosecute, hence making criminal conspiracy unlawful. This blog will help you understand conspiracy under California law, the elements the prosecutor must prove, penalties, and defenses for the crime.

What is Conspiracy?

According to PEN 182, it is a crime for at least two individuals to agree to commit a crime, and one of the co-conspirators completes an overt act to accomplish the arranged crime.  Additionally, it is irrelevant whether one of the parties knows the identity or responsibilities of other conspirators to be convicted. The prosecutor focuses on proving that you agreed to commit the crime. Therefore, you won’t be guilty of criminal conspiracy if you accompany or associate with members of a conspiracy but with no intent or plans to commit a crime.

Also, you should understand that a formal agreement between the group members isn’t a requirement. The prosecutor can rely on circumstantial evidence. If the circumstances surrounding the conduct by your partners in crimes demonstrate you have a common purpose of committing a crime, then it is evidence that you and other group members had an agreement to break the law.

Furthermore, you will be guilty of conspiracy even if you don’t succeed in committing the agreed-upon crime. The scheme and the baseline crime are two different charges, meaning you will face PC 182 violation charges even if the intended criminal act didn’t happen.

Who Can Face Conspiracy Charges?

Any group member who conspired to commit a crime can be convicted for PEN 182 violation even if the crime isn’t achieved. The conspiracy itself and the target crime are separate offenses and, as such, are charged independently.

A group member conspiring to commit a criminal act is criminally liable for the offenses they conspire to commit. It is true regardless of which conspirator commits the crimes. You, as a conspirator, will also be criminally liable for any act done by your partners in crime in furtherance of the conspiracy. Further, you will be guilty if the action has characteristics and probable consequences of a plan to commit conspiracy. As per the rule, you don’t necessarily need to be present during the act to be guilty, and the action doesn’t need to be part of the original plan.

You don’t need to know the identity or roles of your co-conspirators to be convicted of this offense if you were part of the conspiracy.

Moreover, you won’t be liable for the actions of another person who was not a member of the conspiracy, even if their activity assisted the group in attaining its objective.

As a group member conspiring to engage in a criminal act, you aren’t responsible for the actions of other members that occur after the conspiracy’s objective has been accomplished.

Prosecuting Conspiracy

There are particular sets of facts or elements the prosecuting team must prove to convict you and other parties of conspiracy successfully. The prosecutor must present evidence to back each element and demonstrate that an offense was committed beyond reasonable certainty. These elements are mentioned above, but they are further discussed below:

  1. You Planned on Agreeing and did Agree with at Least one Individual to Commit a Crime

As mentioned above, it’s not mandatory for the parties involved to come to an explicit agreement. The most important issue is for the prosecuting team to deduce that you and at least someone else acted with a common goal of engaging in a criminal act.

  1. An Overt Act was Committed to Accomplish the Crime

Any act completed or accomplished to help conspirators commit or advance a crime is an overt act. For you to be guilty of criminal conspiracy, the overt act must have happened after you, as the defendant, agreed with other group members to commit a crime but before the criminal act was completed. In addition, the action must be more than agreeing or intending to engage in a criminal act, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be a crime itself.

An overt act doesn’t necessarily need to possess the characteristics of a crime. For instance, if you went buying ski masks to further the criminal act after an agreement to commit robbery and the prosecutor can prove this element, you will be guilty even if the robbery doesn’t materialize because conspiracy is illegal in and of itself. Other examples of overt acts are:

  • Buying a weapon
  • Visiting a building to scout its layout
  • Giving a signal to a partner in crime
  • Renting a room or vehicle

If, after explicit agreement to commit a crime, any of the above acts occur within the state of California, you will be guilty of PEN 182 violation.

Forms of Conspiracies Recognized in California

There are specific types of conspiracies recognized under PEN 182. These are:

  • Conspiracy to commit a criminal act
  • Two or more parties agreeing explicitly or formally to wrongly and maliciously indict another party or have someone else charged or apprehended for a crime
  • Conspiracy to falsely move or sustain an action, suit, or hearing
  • Conspiring with at least one individual to defraud someone else of their property by illegal means or acquire money or property through false pretenses with fraudulent intent not to live up to the promises
  • Conspiracy with two or more parties to obstruct justice, engaging in detrimental to public health or morals
  • Conspiracy to commit a crime against a public official like the President and the Vice President of the U.S., the governor of a state, or any U.S. judge or justice

Penalties for the Crime of Conspiracy

Conspiracy is an independent offense because you will be punished for the baseline crime and the conspiracy to commit it if found guilty. For instance, if you and your friends plan to rob a bank, you will be punished for conspiring to commit robbery, and if the crime were completed, you would face robbery penalties.

If you are a group member that conspires to commit a crime, you will be criminally responsible for your actions and those of your conspirators. When you are convicted for conspiring to commit a felony against a public official like the President or Governor, you will face a prison sentence of 60, 84, or 108 months.

Similarly, when you work together to engage in any other felony, you will face the same sentence as the one highlighted in the felony above. However, if the felony offense you have committed is punishable based on its degree, it will be up to the jury and the judge to establish the degree of the crime you worked together to achieve. If the criminal act doesn’t have a degree, the jury will assign the offense a slighter degree, except if you were conspiring to commit homicide where the punishment you face is provided for in 1st-degree homicide.

Furthermore, if the felony you are alleged to have committed involves at least two independent felonies with varying punishments and committing these felonies amount to one of the felony offenses in the conspiracy, the judge will impose the penalties for the felony with the highest prison sentence.

When you conspire to cheat or defraud someone else their property through criminal means, if convicted, you will face no more than twelve months jail sentence, a monetary court fine no more than $10,000, or both incarceration and payment of court fines.

Additionally, if found guilty, conspiring to commit any other form of conspiracy will result in jail incarceration for a maximum of twelve months under subdivision (h) of Sec 1170. Alternatively, the judge may order a monetary court fine of at most $10,000 or both jail sentence and the court fine.

Note that if you conspire with one or more individuals to engage in identity theft, a conviction for the conspiracy is punishable by $25,000.

Your conspiracy case will also be tried in the county’s superior court, where any overt act appearing to effect conspiracy will occur.

For you to be convicted during a conspiracy trial, the overt act that makes up the crime must be explicitly supposed in the information, or one of the alleged acts is proven beyond reasonable certainty. Any other overt act that is not alleged in the indictment may be presented as evidence.

Will a Conviction for Conspiracy Affect your Immigration Status?

If you are an alien, a conviction for PEN 182 violation may have negative immigration consequences. Therefore, if you are an immigrant and conspire to commit a crime of moral turpitude, a sentence may see you deported, and if you are outside U.S. borders, you are marked as inadmissible.

Does a Conviction affect Firearm Rights?

A conviction for conspiracy will have negative repercussions on your gun ownership rights. The law prohibits any individual convicted of a felony from purchasing or possessing a firearm. Therefore, if the court finds you responsible for conspiring to commit a felony or misdemeanor and it’s prosecuted as a felony, you will lose the right to acquire or possess a gun.

Negative immigration and gun rights consequences can affect your life in various aspects. And because you don’t want your past mistakes to haunt you in the future, the law has a provision for the expunction of criminal records. Expunction or expungement means clearing your criminal record so that it’s not accessible to the public. It releases you from all punishments and disabilities stemming from a conviction. To be eligible for an expunction, you must meet the following criteria:

  • Complete probation
  • Or jail sentence, whichever applies in your case

Defenses for Conspiracy

There are multiple defenses your criminal defense attorney can mount to contest conspiracy charges and avoid the above consequences. These defenses are:

Lack of an Agreement

Remember, you are only criminally liable for conspiracy if you agree with at least one person to engage in crime. Therefore, you can always argue that a deal didn’t exist between you and the alleged partners in crime, which makes you innocent.

Absence of an Overt Act

Another element that must be present in your case is an overt act. Without the act, there is no conspiracy. Your attorney can argue that although there was an intent to commit a criminal act. Besides, they could claim there is no evidence linking you to assisting other members to commit a crime or to further the agreement’s objectives, and as such, the court won’t convict you for PEN 182 violation. However, you must understand that you don’t have to be the person that completed the overt act or be aware the action took place to be convicted.

For instance, if you agree with your friends to commit burglary in a commercial establishment but fail to do anything to assist, like scouting the entry and exit or the building before the actual burglary, you cannot be prosecuted for conspiracy because there is no overt act. However, if another co-conspirator committed the overt act, even without your knowledge, you will be convicted.

Withdrawal from the Conspiracy

You cannot be convicted for conspiracy if you affirmatively communicate your withdrawal from the group to avoid criminal liability. However, you should display the pulling out early enough before a co-conspirator completes the overt act to assist the group in attaining the agreed-upon objective. This is because if an overt act is finished, you will be convicted for conspiracy even if the actual crime doesn’t occur.

In your defense, you must demonstrate that you truly rejected the conspiracy and communicated the rejection by deed or words to other conspirators who are now defendants. Failing to engage in the overt act or the actual crime is not enough to demonstrate withdrawal from a conspiracy.

The prosecuting team focuses on proving that you conspired to engage in a crime and didn’t pull out of the conspiracy. However, if the element isn’t confirmed beyond reasonable certainty, your attorney can assert that the overt acts were committed after communicating your withdrawal which removes you from the list of conspirators.

Mistake of Law

A crucial element the prosecuting team must demonstrate in these cases is that you agreed with one or more parties to participate in a crime. It means that you must have been aware that the act you decided to engage in was criminal. However, if it turns out that you were not aware that the activity you were conspiring to commit was unlawful, your attorney can claim that you were acting in good faith belief that what you were engaging in was legal under California law.

False Allegations

Finally, you can claim that you have been wrongly accused of conspiracy. To prove this defense, your attorney must demonstrate the motives of other co-accused persons. You can assert that the other defendants want to reduce their role in the commission of the criminal act or are looking to lower their sentences, hence the temptation to accuse you of conspiracy falsely.

If you have been falsely accused, you are less likely to be convicted because, in the first place, the prosecutor must demonstrate that you had the intent to engage in the commission of a criminal act. You agreed with other co-conspirators to participate in the crime. And if they cannot prove this, then the charges will be dropped.

Offenses Related to Conspiracy

Several offenses are charged alongside or in place of conspiracy. These are:

  1. Gang Sentencing Enhancement

Committing a felony to aid or benefit the work of a criminal gang is unlawful under PC 186.22b. It can result in mandatory prison incarceration and an additional and subsequent penalty for the baseline penalty.

Based on the crime facts, a conviction could result in between twenty-five years to life imprisonment. You are likely to obtain this verdict if you conspired with other individuals to engage in a criminal act to aid a criminal gang.

  1. Aiding and Abetting

According to California PC 31, it’s unlawful for you to reassure or help others engage in criminal activity. You would face PC 31 violation charges if you aided an accomplice to complete an overt act, despite being absent in the initial agreement by the group to engage in criminal activity.

  1. Accessory after the Fact

As per PEN 32, it is illegal for an individual to harbor or assists another person they believe has engaged in a crime and shield them from apprehension or conviction. Under this statute, conspiracy occurs if you concealed a conspirator from law enforcement.

  1. Attempt to Engage in a Crime

PC 664 criminalizes any attempt by a person to commit a crime. You are guilty under this statute if you have specific intent to commit a crime and took one or more direct steps towards completing the crime.

The offense is related to conspiracy because an overt act must be present in continuance of the criminal action for a PEN 664 violation to happen.

Find a Criminal Defense Attorney Near Me

At Los Angeles Criminal Attorney, we have experienced attorneys who have handled many cases involving conspiracy. We understand that the penalties of a conviction for conspiracy are as harsh as those of the baseline crime. The prosecutor will attempt to pit conspirators against each other to obtain evidence. For this reason, we are available to evaluate your case and evidence against you, to design the best defense to counter the charges and protect your rights. Call us today at 424-333-0943 for a zero-obligation consultation.