The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law
Chapter 10: We’ll All Go Down Together
Conspiracy pg 17: Solicitation
First, we’ve got SOLICITATION.
The Big Cheese at his desk with his stogie
When the Big Cheese asked me to do the heist, he committed the crime of Solicitation.
Even if I’d said “no,” the Big Cheese would still have been guilty.
The crime of Solicitation occurs when you try to get someone else to commit a crime.
Average Joe talking head
AVERAGE JOE
Just as with Attempt, you’re trying, so the mens rea is intent.
(And the ultimate crime never needs to be completed.)
Some jurisdictions punish solicitation as a minor offense only, others with a lesser proportion of what the intended crime would have gotten. Few punish it as severely as the intended crime itself, however.