131 Minn. 65 | Minn. | 1915
Defendant was indicted and convicted of the crime of attempted extortion and sentenced to a term in the state prison. Thereupon the trial court certified the cause to this court for the determination of two questions, namely:
(1) Does the indictment state facts sufficient to constitute the crime of attempted extortion? and
(2) Is the evidence sufficient to justify the jury in finding beyond a reasonable doubt that there was an overt act done, either by defendant, or by his accomplices, tending but failing to accomplish the crime of extortion ?
This general statement of the evidence embraces all that has any pertinent bearing upon the issue involved. Much was said by defendant and Warming and Webster, in reference to plans and methods o’f putting Lavesson in terror and forcing him to pay over the money, but none of them were put into operation, or attempted to be applied. No communication of any kind was had by any of the persons named with Lavesson or any member of his family, and for aught that appears from the record Lavesson was not aware that efforts were being made by either Warming or Webster to intimidate or put him in fear of harm for his failure to pay the defendant’s alleged claim.
An attempt to commit a crime, to be punishable as such, is the commission of some intentional preliminary guilty act or acts tending directly, in the usual course of natural events, toward the commission of the crime. 1 Wharton, Crim. Law, 268, 279. And it is uniformly held by the courts that, to justify a conviction, such overt act or acts must definitely appear, though they need not be such as necessarily to result in the commission of the crime if not interrupted; it is sufficient that they naturally tend in that direction, and were committed with guilty intent. State v. Dumas, 118 Minn. 77, 136 N. W. 311, 41 L.R.A. (N.S.) 439. Mere acts of preparation are not sufficient, nor does the naked solicitation of another to commit a crime, unaccompanied by acts and
In the case at bar we find, after careful consideration of the evidence, no act or acts in preparation which may be said to bring the ease within the rule stated, as acts and preparation tending directly to the commission of the crime. The evidence at most discloses only solicitations on the part of defendant, and the act of supplying his accomplices with expense money. The whole performance was to be carried out in secret, with no intention on the part of defendant or Warming or Webster of approaching Lavesson with a demand for the money, or of confronting him with threats of injury if he refused to pay the same. Warming abandoned the matter with an attempt to telephone Laves-son, and Webster, the tramp, seems to hare been satisfied with a close attention to the flowing bowl. These parties were the hired agents of defendant, and he was responsible for their acts, but they did nothing looking to the commission of the crime of extortion. If defendant had done all that his hired agents did in the matter, or all that they agreed to do, it seems quite clear that he could not be convicted of an attempt to commit the crime of extortion. And since the mere solicitation is not an attempt to commit a crime, no crime was committed by defendant in hiring and procuring Warming and Webster to do the acts referred to, for the doing thereof had no direct tendency to the consummation of the principal crime. Our statutes
We therefore answer the second question in the negative, and remand the cause for further proceedings.
[G. S. 1913, §8889].