Someone stole some cloth from
Goddard, but the police recovered it. Goddard allowed the police to use
the cloth in a sting operation.
Undercover police went to
Jaffe and asked if he would be interested in buying the 'stolen' cloth.
He was interested. The police arrested Jaffe for attempting to receive
stolen property.
The Trial Court found Jaffe
guilty of attempting to receive stolen property. He appealed.
Jaffe argued that the cloth
was not actually stolen, so if he received it, there would be no actual
crime. Therefore, he could not have be convicted of attempt because commission of the underlying crime was
an impossibility.
The prosecutor argued that
if the cloth had actually been stolen, then Jaffe would have been guilty
of receiving stolen property. Since the cloth was not actually stolen,
but Jaffe thought it was, he should be guilty of attempting to receive stolen property.
The Appellate Court upheld the
conviction.
The New York Supreme Court
reversed and overturned the conviction.
The New York Supreme Court
found that if a person intends to commit an act that would not be a crime
if it were consummated, the person cannot be convicted of an attempt.
The Court found that an
essential element in the crime is that the defendant must have knowledge that the goods were stolen. But since the
goods were not stolen, by definition Jaffe could not have knowledge of something that was untrue.
The Court compared this to a
man who sleeps with a girl he believes is under the age of consent. If
she is actually older than he thinks, he cannot be guilty of statutory
rape, even if he intended to commit the offense.
This case defined when impossibility can be used as a defense against an attempted crime. In general, if there is a legal
impossibility (like in this case),
then there is a defense, but if there is only a factual
impossibility, then there is no
defense.
An example of a legal
impossibility would be for hunters to
shoot at an artificial deer without a license. Since it is not a crime
to kill a stuffed animal, it is no crime to attempt to do what is legal.
An example of a factual
impossibility is when you put your
hand in someone's pocket to rob them, but they have no money. While it
is factually impossible to
rob someone with no money, if you had been successful you would be guilty
of robbery, so being unsuccessful still makes you guilty of attempted robbery.
