Attempt to commit a crime
The element of ‘attempt’ is a very significant law to the US criminal justice system. The argument behind the law is that I an attempted crime fails to occur, the criminal is at will to repeat the crime for one reason or another (Duff, 20130. The element of attempt applies in the case of my friend and myself because our intention to commit the crime of bank robbery was evident. We had purchased the gun, and the distance between how close we went to committing the actual crime and the actual act of robbing the bank was minimal. Several measures determine whether our action qualified as committing the crime of attempted robbery, also known as an Inchoate crime. One of the measures is known as the proximity test, which measures the crime’s progress depending on how close we were to commit the crime. Under this test, we would have committed the crime since I even entered the Bn hall but only failed to draw my gun. The Res Ipsa Loquitur test would also hold us liable for the attempt to commit the crime because it was clear that we had no other intention but to commit the crime when we withdrew.
My friend and I committed several crimes under the attempt of crimes, including conspiracy, to commit crime and solicitation. We planned, bought the gun, and moved closer to the premises where we intended to commit crime made us qualify for charges under a conspiracy to commit a crime. However, we qualified for the voluntary abandonment clause of defense since we can argue that we withdrew from the crime before it took place (Crew, 1988). This I only possible defense available and applicable in my case.
References
The crew, M. H. (1988). Should Voluntary Abandonment Be a Defense to Attempted Crimes? Am. Crim. L. Rev., 26, 441.
Duff, R. A. (2013). Criminal attempts. International Encyclopedia of Ethics.