Conspiracy to murder is a

statutory A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs the legal entities of a city, state, or country by way of consent. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are rules made by le ...

offence defined by the intent to commit

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the ...

England and Wales

The offence of conspiracy to murder was created in statutory law by section 4 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and retained as an offence by virtue of section 1(1) of the

Criminal Law Act 1977 The Criminal Law Act 1977 (c.45) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Most of it only applies to England and Wales. It creates the offence of conspiracy in English law. It also created offences concerned with criminal trespass in ...

. ''

Mens rea In criminal law, (; Law Latin for "guilty mind") is the mental element of a person's intention to commit a crime; or knowledge that one's action (or lack of action) would cause a crime to be committed. It is considered a necessary element ...

'': Although an intention to cause

grievous bodily harm Grievous bodily harm (often abbreviated to GBH) is a term used in English criminal law to describe the severest forms of battery. It refers to two offences that are created by sections 18 and 20 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861. The ...

is sufficient for

, it is not sufficient for conspiracy to murder.

Jurisdiction

Section 1(4) of the Criminal Law Act 1977 formerly provided that it was immaterial that the murder in question would not be triable in England and Wales if committed in accordance with the intention of the parties to the agreement. This reproduced the effect of section 4 of the 1861 Act. See now section 1A of the Criminal Law Act 1977.

Sentence

A person guilty of conspiracy to murder is liable to

imprisonment for life Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

or for any shorter term. As to the maximum sentence in a case where the agreement was entered into before Part I of the Criminal Law Act 1977 came into force, see section 5(5) of that Act. See th
Crown Prosecution Service sentencing manual
The following cases are relevant: *R v Khalil and others 0042 Cr App R (S) 24
R v McNee, Russell and Gunn

007 The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...

EWCA Crim 1529 0081 Cr App R (S) 24
R v Barot

EWCA Crim 1119, 0081 Cr App R (S) 31 (see

Dhiren Barot Dhiren Barot (aliases: Bilal, Abu Musa al-Hindi, Abu Eissa al-Hindi, and Issa al-Britani; born 1 December 1971) is a convicted Indian-born British terrorist. Background Barot was born in Baroda, India, into a Hindu family but converted to Isla ...

)

Northern Ireland

Conspiracy to murder is an offence by virtue o
article 9(1)
of the

Criminal Attempts and Conspiracy (Northern Ireland) Order 1983 In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

(S.I. 1983/1120 (N.I. 13)).

Jurisdiction

See, formerly, article 9(4) of that Order.

Sentence

See article 11(2)(a).

Republic of Ireland

The offence of conspiracy to murder is created by section 4 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861.

Canada

Section 465 of the country's ''Criminal Code'' makes

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agr ...

to commit

indictable offence In many common law jurisdictions (e.g. England and Wales, Ireland, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore), an indictable offence is an offence which can only be tried on an indictment after a preliminary hearing ...

, punishable by a maximum term of

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes fo ...

Australia

The law varies between states with the maximum sentence for this offence being 14 years' imprisonment in Queensland and 25 years' imprisonment in New South Wales.

New Zealand

In New Zealand law, the penalty for the offence of conspiracy to murder is up to 10 years imprisonment, which is set out in section 175 of the

Crimes Act 1961 The Crimes Act 1961 is an act of New Zealand Parliament that forms a leading part of the criminal law in New Zealand. It repeals the Crimes Act 1908, itself a successor of the Criminal Code Act 1893. Most crimes in New Zealand are created by ...

. The intended murder need not happen in New Zealand.

United States

Conspiracy to murder is a defined crime in most jurisdictions in the United States, and normally does not require a murder actually occurring. Federally, it is punishable under

Title 18 Title 18 of the United States Code is the main criminal code of the federal government of the United States. The Title deals with federal crimes and criminal procedure. In its coverage, Title 18 is similar to most U.S. state criminal codes, w ...

by up to

References

{{English criminal law navbox Crimes Conspiracy (criminal) Criminal law of the United Kingdom Canadian criminal law