aTmAg said:
LMCane said:
aTmAg said:
TCTTS said:
The problem is, they caught Barry in the act of attempted murder. He had a gun to daddy Moss' head. Granted, holding a gun to someone's head might not technically be considered attempted murder, but it was pretty obvious to everyone what Barry was about to do.
I'm no lawyer (and I doubt the show will go into these sort of details), but there is no legal certainty that he was going to actually shoot. He could have been attempting robbery, etc. If he shot (even if he missed) then yeah, I think it would be attempted murder.
I actually am a lawyer (not that kind of lawyer)
but I do remember from law school and the Bar Exam you don't need to actually pull the trigger to be convicted of attempted murder..
Isn't there a separate charge for "brandishing a weapon"? If so, then how is that different than attempted murder? If not, then wouldn't every time somebody points a gun at somebody (in anger) be "attempted murder"?
The concept that there could be criminal liability for an attempt, even if ultimately unsuccessful, to commit a crime is comparatively recent.
The modern concept of attempt has been said to date from
Rex v Scofield (Cald 397), decided in 1784. (Sayre, Criminal Attempts, 41 Harv L Rev 821, 834.) In that case, Lord Mansfield stated that "[t]he intent may make an act, innocent in itself, criminal; nor is the completion of an act, criminal in itself, necessary to constitute criminality. Is it no offence to set fire to a train of gunpowder with intent to burn a house, because by accident, or the interposition of another, the mischief is prevented?" (Cald, at p 400;
see, also,
Commonwealth v Kennedy, 170 Mass 18 [Holmes, J.].)
The Revised Penal Law now provides that a person is guilty of an attempt to commit a crime when, with intent to commit a crime, he engages in conduct which tends to effect the commission of such crime. (Penal Law, 110.10.)
The revised statute clarified confusion in the former provision which, on its face, seemed to state that an attempt was not punishable as an attempt unless it was unsuccessful. (See Hechtman, Practice Commentaries, McKinney's Cons Laws of NY, Book 39, Penal Law, 110.00, pp 309-310.)
