Conspiracy - SUMMARY

Question 1

SUMMARY

Answer 1

• Conspiracy is an agreement by two or more people to commit an offence or
  to do or omit to do anything that would be an offence anywhere in the
  world.
• The intent of the offenders must be to commit the offence.
• The offence of conspiracy is complete on the offenders agreeing to commit
  an offence, and continues until they have carried out their objective or until
  it is abandoned or frustrated (eg one of the parties to the conspiracy dies).
  A person who later withdraws from the agreement is still guilty of
  conspiracy.
• You can effectively withdraw from a conspiracy before an agreement is
  reached, but not following the agreement to commit the intended offence.
• The actual agreement need not warrant discussion or decision on how the
  offenders will actually go about the commission of the offence, a simple
  verbal agreement to commit the offence will suffice.
• For an offence intended to be carried out somewhere other than
  New Zealand, it is a defence to a charge of conspiracy where the person
  charged can prove that the act or omission was not an offence under the
  law of the place where it was to be carried out.
• There must be independent evidence of the conspiracy for a conspirator’s
  evidence to be admitted as evidence against his or her co-conspirator(s).
• A person can be charged and convicted of conspiring with a person(s)
  unknown.
• A person can be charged with conspiracy in circumstances where they
  themselves are incapable of effectively carrying out the substantive
  offence.
• When interviewing conspiracy suspects you should consider: the existence
  of an agreement to commit an offence, or the existence of an agreement to
  omit to do something that would amount to an offence; the intent of those
  involved in the agreement; the identity of all people concerned where
  possible; and whether anything was written, said or done to further the
  common purpose.
• Where the substantive charge can be proved you should avoid laying a
  conspiracy charge, unless the substantive charges fail to adequately
  represent the total criminality of the offending encountered.
• Spouses or civil union partners are capable of conspiring together