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United States v. Recio

Supreme Court of the United States · 2003 · Criminal Law
537 U.S. 270 (2003)
Updated
Criminal Lawconspiracyimpossibilityterminationgovernment frustrationdrug conspiracyagreementwithdrawal

Facts

Police in Nevada stopped a truck, found and seized a large stash of illegal drugs, and then used the truck's drivers to set up a sting at a mall in Idaho. After the drivers paged a contact and described the truck's location, respondents Jimenez Recio and Lopez-Meza arrived about three hours later, one driving away in the truck and the other following in a car, after which police arrested them. A federal grand jury charged them, along with the two truck drivers, with conspiracy to possess and distribute unlawful drugs. The legal significance of the facts was that respondents allegedly joined after the government had already seized the drugs and thereby made the conspiracy's immediate objective impossible to accomplish.

Issue

Does a conspiracy automatically terminate as a matter of law when the government, without the conspirators' knowledge, frustrates the conspiracy's objective and makes completion impossible? More specifically, can a defendant still be convicted of joining a conspiracy after the government has seized the drugs that were to be distributed?

Rule

No automatic-termination rule applies in conspiracy law merely because the government has defeated the conspiracy's objective without the conspirators' knowledge. A conspiracy is an agreement to commit an unlawful act, and it does not necessarily end when the substantive objective becomes impossible due to government intervention if conspirators have neither abandoned the agreement nor withdrawn from it.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.
In Phoenix, members of a burglary ring agree to steal a shipment of rare watches from a warehouse and fence them the same night. Before two late-arriving members show up to drive the getaway vans, police have already secretly removed the watches and replaced the boxes with scrap metal, but none of the conspirators knows that.

If the late-arriving members are charged with joining the conspiracy after the police intervention, which is the strongest argument for upholding the conspiracy charges?

Explanation. The majority rule is that conspiracy does not automatically terminate merely because government intervention, unknown to the conspirators, defeats the object and makes success impossible. The essence of conspiracy is the agreement to commit an unlawful act, and the public dangers of the criminal combination remain unless conspirators abandon or withdraw.