Timeline for Can you be punished for planning a crime and what constitutes "planning"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
24 events
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| May 23, 2022 at 22:31 | history | edited | Harper - Reinstate Monica | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 23, 2022 at 22:27 | comment | added | Harper - Reinstate Monica | @Lorenzo "Ignorance of the law is no excuse" is precisely why consulting with competent counsel is so important, and why deference is given to people who do that in ambiguous situations. It removes mens rea when that advice is followed. As I discuss in the IRS example, following advice of counsel doesn't remove all consequences (you still owe the back tax+interest) but it removes the consequences associated with mens rea (penalties and jail in the IRS's case). | |
| May 23, 2022 at 22:17 | history | edited | Harper - Reinstate Monica | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 23, 2022 at 22:03 | comment | added | Harper - Reinstate Monica | @IñakiViggers I don't think so. #1 OP chose your answer before mine was written. #2 c'mon, I said a great deal more than that. #3 disagree. #4 contradicts #2 as you say users seek to enhance their understanding, not read opaque case law, so media cites are very appropriate when valid. Again it seems to me that you are being hostile, I think because of competitiveness, you think every question has One True Answer (yours, natch). I see mine as complementary, exploring an area you didn't cover. Not just to OP's benefit but to everyone's. What's the problem here? | |
| May 23, 2022 at 21:50 | history | edited | Harper - Reinstate Monica | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 23, 2022 at 16:36 | comment | added | reirab | "asking actually helps you" That "(and follow their advice)" parenthetical is extremely important here. - haha - Asking for expert advice and then doing it anyway after being advised it isn't legal will definitely not help you. For example, the FAA takes a very dim view of requesting to do something and then doing it anyway after the request was denied. | |
| May 23, 2022 at 12:34 | comment | added | Iñaki Viggers | @LorenzoDonatisupportUkraine "in Italy a person cannot shirk their criminal responsibilities by asserting that a lawyer advised them to do that." Same in the US: Link v. Wabash Railroad, 370 U.S. 626, 633-634 (1962) ("each party is deemed bound by the acts of his lawyer-agent"); Unicolors, Inc. v. H&H Hennes & Mauritz, 142 S.Ct. 941, 948 (2022) ("the legal maxim that 'ignorance of the law is no excuse'"). But this answer shouldn't obfuscate w/unrelated issues the OP's question. | |
| May 23, 2022 at 12:12 | comment | added | Iñaki Viggers | "I don't agree at all with your interpretation of the question". (1) The OP's acceptance of my answer indicates his agreement that I grasped the substance of his question. (2) Users submit questions typically because they seek to enhance their understanding of the law, not to be told that "your lawyer is the one person you CAN talk to about it" and that reading the statutes is "what lawyers and accountants are for!". (3) Reliance and the attorney-client privilege are irrelevant to the OP's question. (4) Providing specific sources of law would be more useful than delving in a TV series. | |
| May 23, 2022 at 9:20 | history | edited | phoog | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 22, 2022 at 21:33 | comment | added | Harper - Reinstate Monica | @IñakiViggers My answer doesn't discuss case law except to include it in law. I don't agree at all with your interpretation of the question, I think it is you who has missed the question. You appear to be answering the question's title LOL. See also the 2nd comment to the question, which appears to see it exactly as I do. | |
| May 22, 2022 at 21:31 | history | edited | Harper - Reinstate Monica | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 22, 2022 at 21:25 | history | edited | Harper - Reinstate Monica | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 22, 2022 at 6:53 | comment | added | LorenzoDonati4Ukraine-OnStrike | @IñakiViggers ... Even if the prosecutor finds out that what seemed a crime is not actually one (or because he found no evidence to support further investigation) he has to ask a judge to be authorized to close the case. | |
| May 22, 2022 at 6:51 | comment | added | LorenzoDonati4Ukraine-OnStrike | @IñakiViggers Anyway, in Italy we have a completely different legal system than USA. In particular we are not a common law country and our Constitution requires any crime to be prosecuted (prosecutors cannot choose not to prosecute a crime). In fact there is a special legislation for ex mafia members or terrorists that choose to collaborate with the justice that allows the prosecutors to ask the court for specific benefits for the collaborator (protection program, discount on jail-time, etc.). ... | |
| May 22, 2022 at 6:43 | comment | added | LorenzoDonati4Ukraine-OnStrike | @IñakiViggers Just to be clear. Definitely IANAL and the statement of Harper in which it is stated "...it deletes the criminality..." struck me quite a lot (hence the curiosity about the country). As I said, IANAL, but I'm quite sure that here in Italy a person cannot shirk their criminal responsibilities by asserting that a lawyer advised them to do that. On the contrary, the lawyer could also be jailed if a court finds that the "advice" has induced the person to commit the crime (let alone if it finds the lawyer acted more as an accomplice than as an advisor). | |
| May 22, 2022 at 0:18 | comment | added | Iñaki Viggers | "You seem strangely hostile, what's going on?" Not hostile at all. It's only that your answer & comments reflect a thorough misinterpretation of what the OP says, and altogether they fail to address his question. That can only confuse the audience. Nowhere does the OP ask about controversies for which the law is undefined (and which often leads to the development of case law). Instead, the OP's question pertains to issues of mens rea. This implies that he has in mind scenarios where statutory and/or case law already addresses the lawfulness of someone's envisioned or devised actions. | |
| May 21, 2022 at 23:57 | comment | added | Harper - Reinstate Monica | @IñakiViggers Sounds like we all agree that "what is criminal" is unclear sometimes. That's what I'm trying to answer. I don't agree with what you say under "Rather than". That happens in lots of trials but case law comes out of only a few. We literally call that "making new law". Lorenzo didn't ask. You seem strangely hostile, what's going on? | |
| May 21, 2022 at 23:42 | comment | added | Iñaki Viggers | "error made by OP in presuming that every human knows exactly what is criminal". Not at all. The OP even depicted a person saying "Would it be illegal to do XYZ? I want to do this, but I'm not sure if it's legal" as part of a hypothetical scenario. "lawyers aren't even sure about that; that's why we have case law!" That is not why case law exists. Rather than being not sure of whether something is a crime, lawyers try hard to persuade the court that their legal arguments are more meritorious than the adversary's. You should have given LorenzoDonati specifics & sources of your assertion. | |
| May 21, 2022 at 23:29 | comment | added | Harper - Reinstate Monica | @LorenzoDonati USA. | |
| May 21, 2022 at 23:28 | comment | added | Harper - Reinstate Monica | @IñakiViggers I see the problem. Your comment parallels an error made by OP in presuming that every human knows exactly what is criminal and what is not. Heck, the lawyers aren't even sure about that; that's why we have case law! | |
| May 21, 2022 at 23:27 | history | edited | Harper - Reinstate Monica | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 21, 2022 at 21:42 | comment | added | Iñaki Viggers | "charities like my museum aren't allowed to do it". To do what? political campaigns? deductions of expenses those campaigns cause? what does a lobbying exception have to do with planning a crime? The purpose of lobbying is precisely to discourage legislators from enacting or maintaining undesirable statutes, and thus preemptively rule out the criminality of what the lobbyist seeks to accomplish. Is the statutory prohibition you depict realistic? Even if it is, the advice that experts or licensed professionals provide has little or nothing to do with the lawfulness of planning a crime. | |
| May 21, 2022 at 21:35 | comment | added | LorenzoDonati4Ukraine-OnStrike | "in my country this is so rewarded that...", which country, if I may ask? | |
| May 21, 2022 at 5:48 | history | answered | Harper - Reinstate Monica | CC BY-SA 4.0 |