Legal impossibility is a traditional common law defense to a charge of an attempted crime. It arises when the act, if completed, would not be a crime: a person believes they are committing a crime, but the act is in fact lawful, as when someone believes they are receiving stolen goods that are not in fact stolen. A hybrid form arises when the actor's goal is illegal but the crime is impossible because of a factual mistake about the legal status of an attendant circumstance, such as bribing someone wrongly believed to be a juror. The Model Penal Code did away with the defense, and some jurisdictions may find the actor guilty of attempt.
Facts
Classification
Doctrine Category Connections
In Area Of Law
Entity-backed identity for the doctrine category value this doctrine already carries as an enum fact, resolved to a doctrine entity by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The enum fact itself stays on the entity unchanged.
In Legal System
Source Legal impossibility (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Legal impossibility
a traditional common law defense to a charge of an attempted crime; arises when the act, if completed, would not be a crimeView the Source Legal impossibility (Wikipedia)
In Legal System: Common Law, Wikipedia lead sentenceQuote, In Legal System: Common Law, Wikipedia lead sentence
Legal impossibility is a traditional common law defense to a charge of an attempted crime
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.