CHAPTER XXVIII.

 

CONSPIRACY

 

CONTENTS

 

SECTION 1.   Conspiracy defined—Examples

2.     Joining in a conspiracy after the same is formed.

3.     Act in pursuance of conspiracy unnecessary

4.     An act of either is that of all.

5.     Husband and wife.

6.     Prosecution may be joint or several.

7.     Punishment not imposed for conspiracy and offense both.

8.     Trivial offense.

9.     First degree---Punishment.

10. Second degree--- Punishment.

 

1.  A conspiracy is malicious or fraudulent combination or mutual undertaking or concerting together of two or more, to commit any offense or instigate any one thereto, or charge any one therewith; or to do what plainly and directly tends to excite or occasion offense, or what is obviously and directly wrong-fully injurious to another:

 

For instance—

     A confederacy to commit murder, robbery, theft, burglary or any other offense provided for in the criminal code; to prevent, obstruct, defeat or pervert the course of justice, by suborning a witness, tampering with jurors, or the like offenses:

      To groundlessly accuse any one of, and cause him to be prosecuted for, an offense:

      To charge any One with an offense, with the intent and for the purpose of extorting money from him

     To falsely charge one with being the father of an illegitimate child:

     To cheat another by means of false tokens and pretenses:

      To manufacture a spurious article for the purpose of defrauding whomsoever the same can be sold to:

         To destroy a will and thereby prejudice the devisees :

      To prevent another, by indirect and sinister means, from exercising his trade, and to impoverish him.

 

2. Any person knowingly acceding to and joining in a conspiracy after the same is formed, is a party thereto, no less than the one who originally takes part in forming the same

 

3.  It is not requisite that the act agreed upon should be done or attempted in pursuance of the conspiracy; the conspiracy itself, constitutes the offense.

 

4.  The act of each party to a conspiracy, in pursuance thereof, is the act of all

 

5.  Husband and wife cannot by themselves, without others, be guilty of a conspiracy, and the acts or confessions of either are not evidence against the other in a prosecution for conspiracy.

 

6. Conspirators may be tried jointly or severally. But to prevent oppression by joining parties, and thus depriving some of the testimony of others, it is provided that in the trial of any one for a conspiracy, another, charged as a co-conspirator, may be a witness, and in such case the two may be separately tried, through joined in the indictment.

 

7.  Where one is convicted of any offense, he is not liable thereafter to be tried for or convicted of a conspiracy to commit the same; amid if a conspiracy to commit an offense and the commission of the same be charged in the same indictment, the defendant is liable to be sentenced for one only.

 

8. On a prosecution for conspiracy, if the jury find, or the magistrate having jurisdiction of the fact, consider the offense to be trivial, the defendant shall be discharged, with or without costs, in the discretion of the court.

 

9.  Conspiracy to commit, or to instigate to the commission of a felony; or to charge any one with felony; or to prevent, obstruct, defeat, or pervert the course of justice; or to forge or counterfeit or cheat to an amount exceeding one hundred dollars, is in the first degree, and shall he punished by imprisonment at hard labor not more than ten years, or by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, in the discretion of the court.

 

10.  Conspiracy not appearing to be in the first degree, is in the second, and shall be punished by imprisonment at hard labor not exceeding two years, or by fine not exceeding two hundred dollars, in the discretion of the court.