So first of all, I like to call conspiracy the guilt-by-association statute, because that’s basically what it is. You see it both in state and federal practice, but essentially what it means is how can I charge this case so that your client can be held responsible for the crimes of other people? That’s what it is. And in the federal government, it’s not as clear-cut as you might think in terms of elements, because there’s a lot of room for interpretation, but the basics of conspiracy are that one individual, your client unfortunately, agreed with at least one other person to commit some acts in furtherance of a crime. And the problem is where are the limits here? How can you be held accountable for somebody else’s crimes if you didn’t have knowledge? Or more often what I see is the prosecution will say you either should’ve known that this additional crime was gonna happen or it was reasonably foreseeable, and because this is all very ambiguous, I’m gonna give a more concrete example.

So let’s say it’s a typical drug conspiracy case, which I see in federal court all the time, and the problem with that is there are mandatory minimums, so that can be a whole ‘nother can of worms. But they charge you with conspiracy, so let’s say your client admitted that he dealed in a very small quantity, like a just tiny amount of marijuana in that area. So then they’re gonna say, “Okay, but you conspired with this other guy, who was a known drug dealer, who would deal in very large quantities, who one day took out a gun and shot somebody when he was making that deal.” All of a sudden, you’re on the hook for murder. You’re no longer just a small-level drug dealer, so they’re gonna say, “Well, conspiracy to commit murder. It was reasonably foreseeable when you started dealing drugs with this known drug dealer that known drug dealers carry weapons and somebody could get killed.” And so you can see the liability keeps getting extended and extended, and maybe your client has a small part in whatever that conspiracy was, but it was limited, and the problem is the law allows for liability to keep being extended, and all of a sudden this small-level drug dealer is looking at a murder rap.