Effective 28 Aug 2016

562.014. Conspiracy — guilt for an offense may be based on. — 1. Guilt for an offense may be based upon a conspiracy to commit an offense when a person, with the purpose of promoting or facilitating the commission of an offense, agrees with another person or persons that they or one or more of them will engage in conduct which constitutes such offense.

2. It is no defense to a prosecution for conspiring to commit an offense that a person, who knows that a person with whom he or she conspires to commit an offense has conspired with another person or persons to commit the same offense, does not know the identity of such other person or persons.

3. If a person conspires to commit a number of offenses, he or she can be found guilty of only one offense of conspiracy so long as such multiple offenses are the object of the same agreement.

4. No person may be convicted of an offense based upon a conspiracy to commit an offense unless an overt act in pursuance of such conspiracy is alleged and proved to have been done by him or her or by a person with whom he or she conspired.

5. (1) No person shall be convicted of an offense based upon a conspiracy to commit an offense if, after conspiring to commit the offense, he or she prevented the accomplishment of the objectives of the conspiracy under circumstances manifesting a renunciation of his or her criminal purpose.

(2) The defendant shall have the burden of injecting the issue of renunciation of criminal purpose under subdivision (1) of this subsection.

6. For the purpose of time limitations on prosecutions:

(1) A conspiracy to commit an offense is a continuing course of conduct which terminates when the offense or offenses which are its object are committed or the agreement that they be committed is abandoned by the defendant and by those with whom he or she conspired;

(2) If an individual abandons the agreement, the conspiracy is terminated as to him or her only if he or she advises those with whom he or she has conspired of his or her abandonment or he or she informs the law enforcement authorities of the existence of the conspiracy and of his or her participation in it.

7. A person shall not be charged, convicted or sentenced on the basis of the same course of conduct of both the actual commission of an offense and a conspiracy to commit that offense.

8. Unless otherwise set forth in the statute creating the offense, when guilt for a felony or misdemeanor is based upon a conspiracy to commit that offense, the felony or misdemeanor shall be classified one step lower than the class provided for the felony or misdemeanor in the statute creating the offense.

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(L. 1977 S.B. 60, A.L. 2014 S.B. 491, A.L. 2016 H.B. 2332)

Transferred 2014; formerly 564.016; Effective 1-01-17