Soliciting A Crime In California – Penal Code Section 653f
Suppose one person solicits another person to commit a crime, and that person gets the communication related to the crime, understands it, and commits it. In that case, the person who solicited the crime will also be guilty of the crime as well.
I've seen this a lot in murder cases where somebody solicits another person to murder another party. It's not just limited to murder cases. It can be soliciting a person to commit any crime.
The crime that the person will be charged with will be related to whatever they solicited the person to do. This can be a severe crime with the same consequences as if you committed the crime yourself.
So, suppose you're charged with soliciting a crime. In that case, you want to get in front of an attorney and tell them exactly what happened so that you can begin strategizing and defending yourself for soliciting another person to commit a crime.
Defenses for Soliciting a Crime
Pursuant to California Penal Code Section 653f, one defense that I've seen and that makes sense is that you were just joking. In other words, when you supposedly solicited the crime, you had no intention of it being carried out, and the person you allegedly solicited to commit the crime obviously knew that you were joking.
Usually, for there to be any conviction or prosecution for soliciting a crime in LA, the police or prosecutors are going actually to find out about it.
That usually occurs when somebody solicits a crime, the crime is committed, and the authorities investigate. They figure out why the crime was committed, who committed it, and the person who committed it confesses to it and indicates that someone else solicited them to commit that crime – this is probably the usual scenario where somebody would find out about a solicitation of a crime.
Another area that we see is when parties are acting together to commit some insurance fraud, they can solicit another person to give false documents, for example, or do other things related to this crime, and then anybody involved with that would be charged with soliciting a crime if they asked another person to do so. That's the critical thing.
This should not be confused with aiding or abetting or any other culpability theories in criminal cases. It's peculiar. One person solicits another to commit a crime. That person gets the communication and finds out about it. These are the crucial elements when soliciting a crime in Los Angeles.
Lawyer to Review the Details of the Case
What I typically do is have the party charged with soliciting a crime in Los Angeles come into my office. We sit down and go over all the details to see if there's a defense. We also see if the prosecutors and police are actually going to be able to meet the elements of this crime, or maybe they don't have the elements met, especially once your version of events is gotten across to the police.
Often, the police will only do a one-sided investigation and not get your side of the story. In this case, the job would be to let the prosecutors, who are the lawyers and decide the charges, know the other facts that are relevant to a potential defense or to show that this is not a solicitation of a criminal case, therefore, protecting your record, your reputation, your rights, and your freedom.
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