Oddbean new post about login | logout Serious question regarding freedom of speech. If you are planning to assassinate someone, and try to hire an undercover cop, why is that illegal if you didn't kill that person? Wasn't it all just free speech?
The charger will be "intend to comit crime" the special word here "intend"
I could be wrong but my understanding is the key is if you hand over money. Then it's not just speech but you have actually made a payment for the crime.
Yeah, wondering that also, but people talking about ‘conspirscy’ is different?
The mainstream answer is that would be conspiracy to commit murder which is a crime itself. You can say “I wish that guy were dead” that’s an opinion and it’s free speech, but if you enter an agreement with someone to exchange money in order to kill another person that’s conspiracy. The words are not the crime the conspiracy is.
Could you get arrested before handing over the money? If so, if on the ground of ‘conspirscy to commit’, couldn't that he applied to many other ‘free speech scenarios’?
Not a cop, but As a practical matter my understanding is that they wait until money is exchanged for this reason. Paying the money is an overt act which is proof of intent and that an agreement between two parties is made. Otherwise “I was just blowing off steam, it was just two guys talking” is a legitimate defense. In practice people must have lived in a time before conspiracy to commit murder was a crime itself and they didn’t like the outcomes (breaking up a plan to murder before it happens and they get away with no punishment) so it becomes a law.