Sayre CriminalConspiracy 1922

Criminal Conspiracy
Author(s): Francis B. Sayre

Source: Harvard Law Review , Feb., 1922, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Feb., 1922), pp. 393-427
Published by: The Harvard Law Review Association
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CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY 393
CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY'
IN those fields of industrial controversy where passion runs high

and where class conscious groups are arrayed in bitter fight the
one against the other, where each side with difficulty is restrained
from open war and induced to substitute therefor settlement by
judicial action, the law has a very difficult and delicate function
to fulfill. Under the terrific thrust and strain of some of the most
tremendous social issues of the day, it is of far more than usual
importance that the law applicable to labor controversies should
express principles of justice evident to and accepted by the great
mass of mankind; above all else, such law must be thoroughly
predicable. Otherwise class groups will see in legal decisions only
the prejudice and bias of the individual judges; and popular respect
for the law and its administration by the courts will wane to a
possible danger point.
A doctrine so vague in its outlines and uncertain in its funda-
mental nature as criminal conspiracy lends no strength or glory to
the law; it is a veritable quicksand of shifting opinion and ill-con-
sidered thought.2 That this uncertain doctrine should be seized
upon, perhaps because of its very vagueness, as one of the principal
legal weapons with which lawyers press their attack in labor con-
troversies and in which judges find an easy and frequent support
1 A most admirable book dealing with the subject of Criminal Conspiracy is that
of R. S. WRIGHT, Tm; LAW OF CRIMNAL CONSPIRACIES (London, I873). This has
been much relied on in the preparation of this article.
A scholarly account of the early historical development of Conspiracy has just
been published as one of the Cambridge Studies in English Legal History, by P. H.
WINFIELD, Tm HiSTORY OF CONSPIRACY AND ABUSE OF LEGAL PROCEDURE, (I92I),
reviewed in 35 HARV. L. REV. 353.
2 "The offence of conspiracy," says Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, "is more difficult to
be ascertained precisely than any other for which indictment lies; and is, indeed,
rather to be considered as governed by positive decisions than by any consistent and
intelligible principles of law." Talfourd's edition of DICKINSON'S QUARTER SESSIONS,
p. 200 (quoted by Wharton in 3 CRIMINAL LAW, 6 ed., p.. 47, note (d). "The law of
conspiracy is certainly in a very unsettled state. The decisions have gone on no dis-
tinctive principle; nor are they always consistent." C. J. Gibson in Mifflin v. Com-
monwealth, 5 Watts & S. (Pa.) 46I (I843).

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394 HARVARD LAW REVIEW
for their decisions is nothing short of a misfortune. It would seem,

therefore, of transcendent importance that judges and legal scholars
should go to the heart of this matter, and, with eyes resolutely fixed
upon justice, should reach some common and definite understand-
ing of the true nature and precise limits of the elusive law of criminal
conspiracy.
The origin of the crime of conspiracy goes back to the very early
pages of the history of our common law. Apparently it grew out
of the effort of reformers to correct the abuses of ancient criminal
procedure. During the thirteenth century, according to Bracton,3
there were two modes of commencing prosecution for felonies
the one, by way of private appeal, generally involving trial by
battle, and the other by way of public inquest before what later
developed into the grand jury. False appeal was in a measure
guarded against by the personal liabilities of the appellor; if the
appellor were vanquished in the battle by which the truth of the
accusation was tried, he was, in the words of Bracton, "committed
to gaol, to be punished as a calumniator, but he shall not lose his
life nor a limb, although according to the law he is liable to re-
taliation." 14 Furthermore, the vanquished was liable to a pecu-
niary penalty. "But upon the duel being finished a penalty of
sixty shillings shall be imposed upon the vanquished party as a
recreant, and besides he shall lose the law of the land (legem terrae
amittet). " 5
Nevert-heless, abuses sprang up; children under twelve, who
could not be outlawed and against whom no damages could be
recovered, were sometimes incited to bring the appeal. The newer
procedure of "indictment upon common report" by a grand jury
lent itself to still greater abuse; one could bring to the jury false
reports, and thus perhaps accomplish the downfall of his enemy,
3 BRACTON: DE LEGIBUS ET CONSUETUDINIBUS ANGLIAE, f. I43. Compare GLAN-

VILLE: DE LEGIBUS, bk. I4, ch. i. For the brief survey of the criminal procedure of
this period, see i STEPHEN, HiSTORY OF CRIMINAL LAW, ch. 8; I PIKE, HISTORY OF
CRImE, ch. 2.
4 BRACTON, DE LEGIBUS ET CONSUETU1DINIBUS ANGLIAE, f. I37.
5 GLANVILLE, DE LEGIBUS, bk. 2, ch. 3. See also 2 POLLOCK & MAITLAND, His-
TORY OF THE ENGLISH LAW, 457, 538.

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without incurring the personal risk dependent upon the outcome

of the trial by battle. It soon became evident that measures must
be taken to correct such practices. For this purpose there was
passed in I285 the statute of I3 Edw. I, c. I2, to the following
effect:
"Forasmuch as many, through Malice intending to grieve other, do

procure false Appeals to be made of Homicides and other Felonies by
Appellors, having nothing wherewith to make Satisfaction to the King
for their false Appeal, nor to the Parties appealed for their Damages;
it is ordained, That when any, so appealed of Felony surmised upon
him, doth acquit himself in the King's Court in Due Manner, either at
the Suit of the Appellor, or of our Lord the King, the Justices, before
whom such Appeal shall be heard and determined, shall punish the Ap-
pellor by one year's Imprisonment; and such Appellors shall neverthe-
less restore to the Parties appealed their Damages, according to the
Discretion of the Justices, having respect to the Imprisonment or Ar-
restment that the Party appealed hath sustained, by reason of such
Appeals, and to the Infamy that they have incurred by the Imprison-
ment or otherwise: and shall nevertheless make a grievous Fine unto the
King. . . ."
Other statutes were passed allowing recovery by writ out of

chancery,6 and by inquest without writ.7 This series of statutes
culminated in the famous Third Ordinance of Conspirators, 33
Edw. I, passed in I304, which in certain respects summed up the
pre-existing law and gave a precise definition of conspiracy:
6 First Ordinance of Conspirators, TOMLIN'S STAT. AT L., 20 EDW. I, P. 399. "Our

Lord the King [by] Gilbert de Roubery, Clerk of his Council, hath commanded that
who ever will complain of Conspirators, Inventors and Maintainers of false quarrels
and their Abettors and Supporters and having Part therein, and Brokers of Debates,
[that Persons so grieved and complaining shall come to the Chief Justices of our Lord
the King, and shall have a Writ of them, under their Seals, to attach such Offenders,
to answer to the Parties grieved so complaining before the aforesaid Justices; and
such shall be the Writ made for them]. . . . And if any be thereof convicted at the
Suit of such Complainants, he shall be imprisoned till he hath made Satisfaction to
the Party grieved, and shall also pay a grievous Fine to the King."
7 Second f4-2' -jce of Conspirators, 28 EDW. I, C. IO (I300). "In regard to Con-
spirators, false Informers, and evil Procurers of Dozens, Assises, Inquests and Juries,
the King hath ordained Remedy for the Plaintiffs by a Writ out of the Chancery.
And notwithstanding, he willeth that his Justices of the one Bench and of the other,
and Justices assigned to take Assises, when they come into the Country to do their
Office, shall, upon every Plaint made unto them, award Inquests thereupon without
Writ, and without Delay, and shall do Right unto the Plaintiffs."

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"Conspirators be they that do confeder or bind themselves by Oath,

Covenant, or other Alliance, that every of them shall aid and support
the Enterprise of each other falsely and maliciously to indite, or cause
to be indited [or falsely to acquit people] or falsely to move or maintain
Pleas; and also such as cause Children within Age to appeal Men of
Felony, whereby they are imprisoned and sore grieved; and such as re-
tain Men with their Liveries or Fees for to maintain their malicious En-
terprises; [and to suppress the truth] as well the Takers as the Givers.
And Stewards and Bailiffs of great Lords, which, by their Seignory,
Office, or Power, undertake to maintain or support [Quarrels, Pleas, or
Debates] [for other Matters] than such as touch the Estate of their
Lords or themselves.
"[This Ordinance and final Definition of Conspirators was made and
finally accorded by the King and his Council in his Parliament the thirty-
third Year of his Reign. . . . "
Finally, the Statute of 4 Edw. III, c. ii (I330), made conspiracy

'an offense open to ready prosecution, by providing that the jus-
tices of either bench or of assize in sessions "shall enquire, hear,
and determine, as well at the King's Suit, as at the Suit of the
Party," cases of conspiracy or maintenance "as Justices in Eyre
should do if they were in the same county."
Thus, it will be seen that the offense of conspiracy did not origi-
nate as a general offense at common law, nor under Norman insti-
tutions, but in a series of statutes dating from the time of Edward I,
enacted to remedy a specific abuse. The statutes themselves make
clear how narrow and restricted was the early offense of conspiracy.
The offense admitted of no broad common-law generalizations; it
was limited to offenses against the administration of justice, and
was strictly confined to the precise and definite language of the
statutes. Combinations only to procure false indictments or to
bring false appeals or to maintain vexatious suits could constitute
conspiracies.
8 "The earliest meaning of conspiracy was thus a combination to carry on legal

proceedings in a vexatious or improper way, and the writ of conspiracy, and the power
given by the Articuli super Chartas to proceed without such a writ, were the fore-
runners of our modern actions for malicious prosecution. Originally, therefore, con-
spiracy was rather a particular kind of civil injury than a substantive crime, but like
many other civil injuries it was also punishable on indictment, at the suit of the king,
and upon a conviction the offender was liable to an extremely severe punishment
which was called 'the villain judgment."' 2 STEPHEN, HIST. OF THE CRIM. LAW, 228.

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We have the record of a case decided in I35I I wherein the court

was called upon to decide whether the offense of conspiracy could
be so broadened as to include combinations to commit acts of a
generally illegal and oppressive nature. Upon a presentment of
conspiracy in the Eyre of Derby grounded upon allegations that
the defendants had imprisoned and generally oppressed the people,
a judgment had been rendered against the defendants; and one of
the defendants then sought to reverse the judgment of the lower
court. Justice Shardelowe, pressed to brand the defendant's con-
duct as a conspiracy, stoutly refused; and, in spite of the arguments
of counsel, reversed the former decision, partly because no specific
year or day or place had been named in the presentmnent, and
partly "because the principal matter of the conspiracy alleged is
not conspiracy, but rather damage and oppression of the people."
Although between the reigns of Edward III and Elizabeth a
number of statutes were passed to suppress combinations for
various specific purposes, such as treasonable designs, breaches of
the peace, raising prices, and the like, yet prior to the seventeenth
century there seems to have been no mention of any combination
or confederacy having been held criminal under the common law ex-
cept the crime of conspiracy as defined by the Ordinance of I305.10
According to the older notions, the crime of conspiracy for pro-
curing false indictments was not complete until the person falsely
accused had been actually indicted and acquitted.11 Nothing short
of an acquittal following an indictment would do.12 This seems to
9 Anon., Year Book, 24 EDW. III, f. 75, pL. 99.

10 It is to be noted, however, that by the early part of the sixteenth century the
courts had developed a common-law "Action upon the Case for a Conspiracy" for
damages for cases of procuring false indictments where the facts would not strictly
support a case under the Conspiracy Writs, as for example, where a single person had
procured a false indictment. See FITZHERBERT, NATURA BRE1viu, II4 D. See also
the case of Marsh v. Vauhan, Cro. Eliz. 70I. In that case two had been indicted for
conspiracy, and one was found guilty and the other not. The court thereupon quashed
the indictment; and the opinion of the whole court was "that a writ of conspiracy
lies not, nor is maintainable upon this verdict. But an action upon the case, in nature
of a conspiracy, might have been brought in this case."
11 Where the conspiracy was for maintenance, however, it had been held as early
as I354 that the defendants might be held to answer for the conspiracy each to main-
tain the other though no suit had actually been commenced. See Anon., 27 Ass.,
f. I38 b, pl. 44.
12 "A Writ of Conspiracy lieth where two, three or more persons of malice and
covin do conspire and devise to indict any person falsely, and afterwards he who is so

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have remained the well-settled law for some three centuries; it was
not until the close of the sixteenth century that the courts began
to relax the strictness with which they had always limited the
crime of conspiracy. During the reign of James I, Chief Justice
Popham recalled a case, decided in I574, wherein the justices had
suggested that a common-law indictment for conspiracy might
be allowed against false accusers even though no indictment upon
the false charge had been found by the grand jury."3 Such a doc-
trine was authoritatively established by the Court of Star Chamber
in the famous Poulterers' Case,14 decided in i6ii. Thus was taken
the first step in the long process by which the early rigidly defined
crime of -conspiracy was, through judicial, analogical extension,
gradually expanded into the vague and uncertain doctrine which
we know to-day.
In the Poulterers' Case, the defendant poulterers had confed-
erated to bring against one, Stone, a false accusation of robbery;
but Stone was so manifestly innocent of the crime charged that the
grand jury refused to indict him. As a defense to the action for
damages subsequently brought by Stone against his false accusers,
it was argued that since he had never been indicted or acquitted,
no recovery could be had; "because no writ of conspiracy for the
party grieved, or indictment or other suit for the King lies, but
where the party grieved is indicted, and legitimo modo acquietatus,
as the books are F. N. B. II4b; 6 E. 3, 4ia; 24 E. 3, 34b;
43 E. 3. Conspiracy II; 27 Ass., p. 59; I9 H. 6, 28; 2I H. 6, 26;
g.E. 4, I2, &c." But the Court of Star Chamber squarely decided
to the contrary, citing certain early notes, and definitely held that,
as in conspiracies for maintenance, the confederating together con-
stituted the gist of the offense rather than the false indictment
and subsequent acquittal. From the doctrine announced by this
indicted is acquitted; now he shall have this Writ of Conspiracy against them who so
indicted him." FITZHERBERT, NATURA BREvIm, II4D. Coke defines conspiracy as
" a consultation and agreement between two or more to appeale or indict an innocent
falsely and maliciously of felony, whom accordingly they cause to be indicted and
appealed; and afterward the party is lawfully acquitted by the verdict of twelve men."
(3 INST. I42-I43.) So, Hudson, in his treatise on the Star Chamber (2 COLL. JURID.
I04, IO5) says in regard to conspiracy: "But when the party is indicted, and not
legitimo modo acquietatus, then can no conspiracy lie, as it was adjudged in Daniel
Wright's case." See also Sherington v. Ward, Cro. Eliz. 724.
13 Sydenham v. Keilaway, Cro. Jac. 7.
4 9 Coke 55 b.

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decision, it- was an easy step to the very general doctrine that since
the gist of the crime is the conspiracy, no other overt act is neces-
sary; 15 and this came to be the well-acknowledged law of criminal
conspiracy.'6 In the ancient phraseology, it was not necessary to
show that anything had been "put in ure"; 17 the mere conspiracy
alone was held to constitute the gist of the offense and to be there-
fore indictable. There seems to be no doubt but that the courts
in adopting this doctrine followed a sound instinct; and the prin-
ciple, thus early decided, has come to be a universal and well-settled
doctrine of the modern law of conspiracy. There is nothing in the
doctrine out of accord with the well-recognized principle of crimi-
nal law that without some overt act no one can be convicted of a
common-law crime, no matter how black his intent may have been.
For the conspiring together itself constitutes an overt act which may
well furnish the basis of crnminal liability. Once given some overt
act, the criminal law does not necessarily require the fulfillment of
the defendant's designs or the completion of his intended actions
before liability attaches. The entire law of attempts bears witness
to the contrary.
Some writers, indeed, have viewed the law of criminal conspiracy
as an outgrowth of the larger law of criminal attempts.'8 That the
two have many features in common and are based very largely
on the same general underlying principles, cannot be gainsaid.
Nevertheless, the two are not to-day the same; every criminal
conspiracy is not an attempt. One may become guilty of con-
spiracy long before his act has come so dangerously near to com-
pletion as to make him criminally liable for the attempted crime.
15 The growth of this doctrine may be traced in the following cases: Rex v. Kim-
berty, i Lev. 62 (I663); Rex v. Armstrong, i Ventr. 304 (I678); Rex v. Best, 2 Ld.
Raym. II67, 6 Mod. i85 (I705); Rex v. Kinnersley & Moore, i Stra. I93 (I7I9).
18 See, for example, i HAWKiNS, PLEAS OF THE CROWN, C. 72, ? 2. As Hawkins
points out, a distinction was drawn between a formal action based upon the writ of
conspiracy and "an action on the case in the nature of such writ."
17 Anon., 27 Ass., f. I38 b, pl. 44 (I354).
18 See, for example, WRiGHT, LAW OF CONSPIRACY, 36, 62. Stephen also comments
on the analogy between the law of conspiracy and that of attempts. 2 STEPHEN,
HISTORY OF THE CRIMNAL LAW, 227. Bishop goes so far as to say: "The act of con-
spiring, and the specific intent to accomplish what constitutes a substantive crime,
are in combination a criminal attempt, and it is the professional usage to term it con-
spiracy. It follows the same rules, and is subject to the same limitations, as other
attempts." 2 BISHOP, NEW CRim. LAW, 8 ed., ? I9I(2), P. I07. "It is not called in
the books 'attempt,' but it is such in nature and effect." (i Ibid., ? 592.)

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For instance, as Justice Holmes has poin

ment to murder a man fifty miles awa
tute an attempt, but might easily be in
During the seventeenth century the courts took a second step
in extending and broadening the limits of the crime of conspiracy
of even greater importance than the one just described. Prior to
this century, the crime had been confined very strictly to combina-
tions to defeat the just administration of the law, such as the pro-
curing of false indictments, embracery, and maintenance. During
the seventeenth century the courts began to extend the offense
so as to cover combinations to commit all crimes of whatsoever
nature, misdemeanors as well as felonies.20 This was a bold ex-
tension indeed. It was due in part to the abolition of the Court of
Star Chamber, which cast upon the Court of King's Bench the
duty, hitherto assumed by the Star Chamber, of dealing with mis-
demeanors; and the judges of King's Bench, groping their way
through unfamiliar paths, tried new legal adventures. Perhaps it
was due even more largely to the character of the period or stage
through which the law was passing. People had felt the injustice
of the hard, narrow formalism, the rigidity and unjust technicali-
ties of the "Strict Law" period of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and
sixteenth centuries. During the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies a reaction set in, in favor of a broader, more moral law. Fine-
spun intricacies of pleading and- the technicalities of formal writs
began to give way before questions of right and wrong. It was a
period when the courts were busy infusing morals into the law;
and inevitably, as part of this process of infusion, there came to be
a blurring of the line of distinction between law and morals, and a
consequent confusion of the two. In i6i6, in Bagg's Case,21 the
Court of King's Bench formally "resolved, that to this Court of
King's Bench belongs authority, not only to correct errors in
judicial proceedings, but other errors and misdemeanors extra-
judicial, tending to the breach of peace, or oppression of the sub-
jects, or to the raising of faction, controversy, debate, or to any
19 Hyde v. United States, 225 U. S. 347, 388 (I9I2).

20 The courts of this period even went so far as to hold criminal a combination to
accuse one of an offense cognizable only in the spiritual courts. See Rex v. Timberley
& Childe, i Sid. 68, i Keb. 203, 254 (i663).
21 II Co. Rep. 93 b, 98 a (i6i6).

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CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY 40I
manner of misgovernment; so that no w

or private, can be done, but that it shall be (here) reformed or
punished by due course of law." So in Rex v. Sidney,22 decided in
I664, twenty-four years after the abolition of the Court of Star
Chamber, the Court of King's Bench, addressing the defendant
indicted for several misdemeanors, "which were a great scandal
of Christianity," reiterated much the same doctrine, declaring
that " although there was not now a Star Chamber, still they would
have him know that this court is custos morum of all the subjects
of the King." Even as late as Lord Mansfield's time, such pre-
tensions had not been entirely abandoned. In the case of Jones
v. Randall,23 Lord Mansfield re-echoed good seventeenth-century
doctrine when he said: "Whatever is contra bonos mores et deco-
rum, the principles of our law prohibit, and the King's Court, as
the general censor and guardian of the public manners, is bound
to restrain and punish."
Hence, during the latter part of the seventeenth century, when
the tendency of the courts was in the direction of undertaking to
punish acts immoral as well as those violative of express law, it
was not strange that the idea should gain currency on many sides
that courts should similarly undertake to punish conspiracies to
commit immoral as well as those to commit illegal acts. The idea
that a combination may be criminal, although its object would not
be strictly criminal apart from the combination, first began to take
articulate form towards the close of the seventeenth century in
the arguments of counsel. Nevertheless, the judges stoutly re-
fused to follow such suggestions. The doctrine seems to have
been squarely repudiated by Lord Holt in I704; 24 in fact, during
the whole of the seventeenth century, when the courts were stretch-
ing and liberalizing legal principles and doctrines to extremely
wide limits, there seems to be no evidence of a single case (apart
from the doubtful exception of Starling's Case 25) where the courts
22 i Sid. i68 (I664). 23 Lofft, 383 (I774).
24 Daniell's Case, 6 Mod. 99, i Salk. 380 (I704).
25 Rex v. Starling, I Sid. I74 (i665). But apparently ev
ants were convicted because of the criminal nature of w
do, i. e., to interfere with the farming of the public r
Reg. v. Daniell, 6 Mod. 99, ioo, "the case of Starling was
and levelled at the government; and the gist of the off
publick. . . ."

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allowed a conspiracy conviction for a combination to commit an

act not itself criminal.26
After the seventeenth century, when the courts receded from
their extreme seventeenth-century pretensions, the indefensible
doctrine suggested by arguing counsel might well have been for-
gotten had it not been for an unfortunately ambiguous statement
made by Hawkins in his Pleas of the Crown, published in I7I6.
Concerning the crime of conspiracy, Hawkins said: "There can be
no doubt, but that all confederacies whatsoever, wrongfully to
prejudice a third person, are highly criminal at common law." 27
What did Hawkins mean by "wrongfully"? If he meant by
criminal means it was exceedingly unfortunate that he did not
choose terms confined to such a meaning; if he meant by tortious
or merely immoral means, the authorities which he cites in support
of his statement by no means sustain him,28 and almost his only
support is to be found in the loose dicta of seventeenth-century
courts and in the arguments of counsel. Nevertheless, Hawkins'
erroneous statement lived on, partly because of the acknowledged
authority of the writer, partly because of the seventeenth and
eighteenth century confusion of law and morals, partly because
of the very ambiguity of the statement which rendered it the less
liable to be challenged and the more difficult to disprove. In the
26 WRIGHT, LAW OF CONSPIRACY, 67.

27 HAWKINS, PLEAS OF THE CROWN, 6 ed., bk. i, c. 72, ? 2, P. 348.
28 Hawkins cites in support of his statement only four cases and two notes. These
are Rex v. Timberley, i Sid. 68, i Keb. 254, I Lev. 62; The Poulterers' Case, 9 Coke
55 b; Reg. v. Best, 6 Mod. i85; and Starling's Case, i Lev. I25, I26, i Sid. I74;
i Keb. 650; and the two brief notes in 27 Ass. 44 (6) and 2 Rol. Ab. 77 pl. 2, 3. (Two
of Hawkins' citations are erroneous. For i Keble 350, he evidently means i Keble
65o, and for i Mod. i85, he evidently means 6 Mod. i85). With the possible exceptio
of Starling's Case, not one of these cases or notes supports Hawkins' statement. All
except Starling's Case fall within the terms of the Ordinances of Conspirators or are
conspiracies to achieve some criminal object, and therefore prove nothing as to the
criminality at common law of a "confederacy wrongfully to prejudice a third per-
son." Rex v. Timberley and The Poulterers' Case concern conspiracies to procure
false indictments; Reg v. Best concerns a conspiracy falsely to charge another with
being the father of a bastard in order to extort money. Even the two notes do not
support Hawkins' statement. Hawkins' only possible support is Starling's Case;
and a careful reading of that case would seem to prove exactly the opposite of Hawkins'
statement. As Wright states (LAW OF CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY, P. 38): " [Starling's
Case] appears to amount to a decision that a combination to impoverish a man (other
than the king) by means not criminal in themselves, is not criminal."

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course of time, the statement came to be regarded as authorita-

tive and thus furnished the foundation of later dicta and judicial
opinion.
From this time on, the well-acknowledged formula that the
conspiracy constitutes the gist of the offense came to be infused
with quite a new meaning in order to support the statement of
Hawkins interpreted in its erroneous sense. In the case of Rex v.
Edwards, 29 decided in I724, eight years after the publication of
Hawkins' book, certain defendants were indicted for having en-
tered into a conspiracy to marry off a pauper woman to the in-
habitant of another parish so that their own parish might escape,
further liability for her support. The counsel indulged in the
usual arguments, the defense insisting that no one could be con-
victed for conspiring to achieve something not a crime, and the
prosecution, quite regardless of any distinction between law and
morals, arguing that "a conspiracy to do a lawful act, if it be for
a bad end, is a good foundation for an indictment." The decision,
it is true, was correctly rendered for the defendant; but the court
by way of dictum echoed the loose ideas of Hawkins, stating that
a "bare conspiracy to do a lawful act to an unlawful end is a crime,
though no act be done in consequence thereof," citing as its only
authority Reg. v. Best, 30 which in reality lends no support to the
doctrine that one can be convicted for conspiring to commit some
illegal but non-criminal act.
Another case often quoted in support of the Hawkins doctrine is
Rex v. Journeymen Tailors,3" decided in I72I, where certain journey-
men tailors were indicted and found guilty of a conspiracy to raise
their wages. In the course of the opinion the court is reported as
saying that "a conspiracy of any kind is illegal, although the
matter about which they conspired might have been lawful for
them, or any of them, to do, if they had not conspired to do it, as
appears in the case of The Tubwomen v. The Brewers of London."
A careful search of the authorities has failed to reveal the existence
of any such case as the one cited. Those who rely upon Rex v.
Journeymen Tailors as a support for the Hawkins doctrine forget
that at the time of the decision there was in force in England a
29 8 Mod. 320 (1724).
30 6 Mod. I85; 2 Ld. Ray. II67 (1705).
31 8 Mod. 10 (1721).

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statute,32 passed the preceding year, which expressly made it

criminal for journeymen tailors to enter into any agreement "for
advancing their Wages or for lessening their usual Hours of Work";
under this statute and under 2 & 3 Edw. 6, c. I5, the defendants'
conduct would have been criminal quite apart from any conspiracy
doctrine.
Apart from the fraud cases, where the Hawkins doctrine crept
into the decisions during the latter part of the seventeenth and the
early eighteenth centuries, and from which it has never been
eliminated, the vast majority of actual decisions still continued to
adhere to the long-established law that there could be no conspiracy
conviction unless the object conspired for or the means used was
criminal. For instance, in the much-quoted case of Rex v. Turner,33
decided by the King's Bench in i8ii, an indictment was brought
for conspiracy for "unlawfully and wickedly devising and intending
to injure, oppress and aggrieve" a certain property-owner by
"unlawfully and wickedly" conspiring to poach upon his preserve
for hares with "divers bludgeons and other offensive weapons,"
and for breaking into the said preserve and "carrying into execu-
tion their unlawful and wicked purposes." The prosecution relied
on the now familiar arguments, quoting in support of their posi-
tion both Hawkins and Rex v. Edwards. But Lord Ellenborough
would have none of such arguments, and made absolute a rule to
arrest the judgment upon a verdict of guilty, saying: "I should
be sorry to have it doubted whether persons agreeing to go and
sport upon another's ground, in other words, to commit a civil
trespass, should be thereby in peril of an indictment for an offence
which would subject them to infamous punishment."
Nevertheless, in spite of square decisions, such as Rex v. Turner,
holding that combinations to commit non-criminal acts cannot
apart from statute themselves be criminal, the seventeenth-cen-
tury ideas persisted. Now and again in arguments of counsel, in
dicta, in epigrammatic statements, in occasional actual decisions,
32 7 GEO. I, C. I3, P. 403 (I720). This statute fixed the daily hours of work f
journeymen tailors as running from six o'clock in the morning to eight o'clock at
night; the wages were fixed from March 25 to June 24 at "any sum not exceeding
Two Shillings per Diem, and for the Rest of the Year One Shilling and Eight Pence
per Diem."
33 I3 East, 228 (i8ii).

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the ghost of Hawkins still walked. Hawk

adopted and transcribed into Burn's Justice,34 which was first
published in I755 and which, in succeeding editions, was so widely
read during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was also
copied into Wilson's Works.35 Chitty, in his Criminal Law,36 again
repeats the Hawkins formula, saying: " In a word, all confederacies
wrongfully to prejudice another are misdemeanors at common
law, whether the intention is to injure his property, his person, or
his character." And in Christian's edition of Blackstone's Com-
mentaries,37 it is said: "Every confederacy to injure individuals,
or to do acts which are unlawful, or prejudicial to the community,
is a conspiracy." A reincarnation of the doctrine took form in
Lord Denman's famous epigram that a conspiracy indictment
must "charge a conspiracy either to do an unlawful act or a lawful
act by unlawful means." 38
Like the magic jingle in some fairy tale, through whose potency
the bewitched adventurer is delivered from all his troubles, this
famous formula was seized upon by judges laboring bewildered
through the mazes of the conspiracy cases as a ready solution for
all their difficulties. It would fit any conspiracy case whatever;
it was, so to speak, ready to wear, and obviated the necessity of
carefully thinking through or correctly analyzing the doctrine of
conspiracy. As a consequence, judges gave to it the widest use.
In spite of the fact that Lord Denman himself later apparently
repudiated it,39 it came to be considered as a sacred and final
dispensation of the law. The real difficulty was that it con-
tained the same kind of ambiguity as did Hawkins' statement
in the preceding century; "unlawful" might be interpreted so
as to mean "criminal," in which case it correctly stated the
law according to the great majority of decisions; or it might
34 i RiCHARiD BURN, THE JUSTICE OF THE PEACE, 4 ed., p. 276.

35 3 JAMES WILSON, WORKS, ii8. 36 Vol. 3, i ed., p. II39.
87 Vol. 4, p. I36 (Christian's note 4).
38 See Jones' Case, 4 B. & Ad. 345, 349 (i832). Wright, in speaking of this
statement says (LAW OF CRIM. CONSPIRACY, p. 63): "That antithesis was in
by Lord Denman . . . to express the very opposite of that for which it is so
cited." Compare Rex v. Seward, i A. & E. 706, 7II, 7I3 (I834).
39 In the subsequent case of Reg. v. Peck, 9 A. & E. 686, 690 (I839) Lord D
said in reply to counsel quoting his own words to him: "I do not think the a
very correct."

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without doing the least violence to the language, be interpreted

to include " tortious " as well as " criminal," in which case eight-
eenth-century misconceptions would be still further perpetuated.
Unfortunately, it was in the latter sense that it was too often
interpreted, particularly in the loose dicta of the conspiracy cases.
The truth of the matter is that judges found the Hawkins con-
ception of criminal conspiracy entirely too convenient an instru-
ment for enforcing their own individual notions of justice to be
lightly discarded. It enabled judges to punish by criminal process
such concerted conduct as seemed to them socially oppressive or
undesirable, even though the actual deeds committed constituted
of themselves no crime, either by statute or by common law. And
in cases where the actual deeds were of doubtful criminality, it
saved the judges from the often embarrassing necessity of having
to spell out the crime.
Illustrations of this among the nineteenth-century cases are not
difficult to find. Thus, in Rex v. Bykerdike,40 decided in I832, the
defendants were indicted for conspiracy for threatening a strike
among the employees in a certain colliery unless certain other em-
ployees should be discharged. The action was brought after the
Combinations Act of i8OO 41 had been repealed; and it was popu-
larly supposed that the effect of the Acts of I824 -2 and I825 43 had
been to free labor unions from the charge of criminality which had
attached to them under the former Combinations Act. Quite
possibly in Rex v. Bykerdyke, the separate acts of the defendants,
apart from conspiracy, might have been held to be criminal under
the very ambiguous words of the Act of I825, which prohibited in
trade disputes a "molesting or in any way obstructing another."
But the point is that the judge apparently never took the trouble
to define, nor so far as appears from the report, to inquire into the
precise meaning of these ambiguous words; instead he held the
defendants as criminals under a vague conspiracy doctrine with-
out any discussion or indication as to whether under the Act of
I825 criminality attached to the means they used or the object
they sought, or both, or neither. The jury were informed simply
that "a conspiracy to procure the discharge of any of the work-
40 I Mood. & Rob. I79 (I832). 41 40 GEO. III, C. io6.

42 5 GEO. IV, C. 95. 43 6 GEO. IV, C. I29.

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men would support the indictment. . . ." 4 The case illustrates,

not necessarily a faulty decision, but the obvious convenience and
consequent danger of a doctrine which will allow a judge to enforce
by criminal punishment his individual ideas of what makes for or
against the social welfare.
Similar illustrations are to be found among the American cases.
In State v. Donaldson,45 several employees had been indicted upon
a conspiracy charge for notifying their employer that unless he
discharged certain other employees, they would quit his employ-
ment. After a careful examination of the case, the court could
find nothing criminal in the separate acts committed by the de-
fendants. Nevertheless, relying partly upon Rex v. Bykerdyke,46
and one other English case,47 it refused to quash the indictment;
and it proceeded to brand the defendants as crnminals because of
their participation in a combination which it regarded as illegal
and criminal by reason of its generally oppressive nature. The
court said: 48 "It may safely be said, nevertheless, that a com-
bination will be an indictable conspiracy . . . where the con-
federacy, having no lawful aim, tends simply to the oppression of
individuals." When and under what principles action which other-
wise constitutes no violation of the criminal law may be said to be
criminal because it "tends to the oppression of individuals" is a
question upon which the court remained discreetly silent. The
conduct of those who go on strike to compel their employer to dis-
charge other non-union employees is clearly not criminal apart
from any conspiracy doctrine. Indeed, in the majority of states
it is held not even tortious.49 Acts "tending to the oppression of
44 The Judge's only reference to the Act of I825 was the last sentence of the opinion
in which he said that, "the statute never meant to empower workmen to meet and
combine for the purpose of dictating to the master whom he should employ, and that
this compulsion was clearly illegal." But this summary reference leaves entirely un-
decided whether the criminality lay in the combination, or in some "molesting" of
employees, or in some "obstructing" of the employer.
45 32 N. J. L. I5I (I867).
46 The court quite disregarded or overlooked the fact that Rex v. Bykerdyke was
decided under the English Act of I825 which made criminal the "molesting or in any
way obstructing another" in a trade dispute, - a statute which of course was not in
force in New Jersey.
47 See Ibid., i56, I57. 48 Ibid., p. I54-
49 See, for instance, Cohn & Roth Electric C
ioi Atl. 659 (I9I7); Jetton-DekleLumber Co. v

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individuals" committed in other fields of trade competition have

often been held entirely justifiable.50 Yet in State v. Donaldson,
Chief Justice Beasley held that defendants joining in such a strike
were actual criminals.5' Perhaps no case could better illustrate the
vague menace of a criminal-law doctrine by means of which con-
duct usually regarded as perfectly lawful, and nowhere, apart from
the conspiracy doctrine, regarded as criminal, can be turned by a
judge who happens to be out of sympathy with the defendants'
efforts into a criminal offense.
In State v. Burnham,52 decided in I844, a New Hampshire Court
went so far as to declare that a combination to commit a merely
immoral act might constitute a criminal conspiracy. Justice
Gilchrist said:
"An act may be immoral without being indictable, where the isolated
acts of an individual are not so injurious to society as to require the in-
tervention of the law. But when immoral acts are committed by num-
bers, in furtherance of a common object, and with the advantages and
strength which determination and union impart to them, they assume
the grave importance of a conspiracy, and the peace and order of society
require their repression. . . . When it is said in the books that the means
must be unlawful, it is not to be understood that those means must
amount to indictable offences, in order to make the offence of conspiracy
Kemp v. Division, No. 24I, 255 Ill. 2I3, 99 N. E. 389 (I9I2); Clemmitt v. Watson,
I4 Ind. App. 38, 42 N. E. 367 (I895); Gray v. Bldg. Trades Council, 9I Minn. I7I,
I85, 97 N. W. 663 (I903); State v. Employers of Labor, I02 Neb. 768, 774, i69 N. W.
768 (I9I8); National Protective Ass'n v. Cumming, 170 N. Y. 3I5, 63 N. E. 369
(I902); Kissam v. United States Printing Co. i99 N. Y. 76, 92 N. E. 214 (1910);
Bossert v. Dhuy, 22I N. Y. 342, 117 N. E. 582 (1917); State v. Van Pelt, 136 N. C.
633, 49 S. E. I77 (1904); Roddy v. United Mine Workers, 41 Okla. 621, 139 Pac. 126
(1914); Sheehan v. Levy, 215 S. W. 229 (Tex. Civ. App., I9I9). Contra: Plant v.
Woods, 176 Mass. 492, 57 N. E. ioII (I899), and numerous other Massachusetts cases;
Ruddy v. Plumbers, 79 N. J. L. 467, 75 Atl. 742 (I9IO); Bausbach v. Reiff, 244 Pa.
559, 9I Atl. 224 (1914); State v. Dyer, 67 Vt. 690, 32 Atl. 814 (I894).
50 Mogul Steamship Co. v. McGregor, [I892] A. C. 25; Macauley Bros. v. Tierney,
I9 R. I. 255, 33 Atl. i (I895); Bohn Mfg. Co. v. Hollis, 54 Minn. 223, 55 N. W. III9
(I893).
51 In the later New Jersey case of Jersey City Printing Co. v. Cassidy, 63 N. J. Eq.
759, 762, 53 Atl. 230 (I902), the Court said: "The doctrine of the old cases, of which
we have in New Jersey an interesting example in State v. Donaldson . . . which
placed the employee, when acting in combination with his fellow-workmen, at a tre-
mendous disadvantage as compared with his employer, I think may be regarded as
entirely exploded."
52 i5 N. H. 396, 402, 403 (I844).

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complete. It will be enough if they are corrupt, dishonest, fraudulent,

immoral, and in that sense illegal, and it is in the combination to make
use of such practices that the dangers of this offence consist."
Such language sounds more as though it had been written by

the Court of Star Chamber in the seventeenth century than by a
judge in liberty-loving America more than half a century after the
American Revolution. Yet in spite of the fact that the doctrine
of State v. Burnham was apparently directly overruled in the later
New Hampshire case of State v. Straw,53 State v. Burnham is still
quoted to-day in support of the Hawkins doctrine.54 Thus, like an
underground stream that ever keeps coming to the surface, the
doctrine, constantly reiterated in the loose dicta of courts and the
statements of text-writers, has kept appearing and reappearing
ever since Hawkins' time, in spite of the fact that, apart from
fraud cases, so far as actual decisions are concerned the doctrine
finds almost no support.55
II
Thus far the doctrine that a combination to commit a non-

criminal act may constitute a criminal conspiracy has been ex-
amined solely from the historical viewpoint; and in the light of
history the doctrine seems so manifestly founded upon miscon-
ceptions and erroneous applications of ambiguous statements that
it is difficult to support. But many wholesome and salutary doc-
trines of the law have sprung up through misunderstandings of
past decisions or without any historical basis whatsoever. To
show the historical illegitimacy of a legal doctrine does not dis-
prove its present right of existence or its usefulness. Quite apart
from historical considerations, is the doctrine logically sound?
Will it bear the test of careful analytical scrutiny?
An analytical examination of the doctrine raises new difficul-
ties. If the object sought by a combination is in no way criminal,
and if the means utilized are in no way criminal, just wherein lies
S 42 N. H. 393, 396 (5) (i86i). The court in this case squarely held that a com-
bination to commit a civil trespass did not constitute a criminal conspiracy.
54 See, for example, 8 Cyc. 624, note i9; I2 C. J. 548, note 48; 2 BISHOP, NEW
CRim. LAW, 8 ed., ? i8i, note 2 (p. 103); 3 WHARTON, CRIM. LAW, 6 ed., 8i, note (1),
? 2326.
55 See infra, p. 422 et seq.

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any criminality? The mere act of combining can surely not be

criminal, where no criminal end is sought nor criminal means used.
It is no crime to combine to form a social club, a church, a political
association. As was said by Serjeant Talfourd, in discussing the
crime of conspiracy: 56
"It is not easy to understand on what principle conspiracies have

been holden indictable where neither the end nor the means are, in
themselves, regarded by the law as criminal, however reprehensible in
point of morals. Mere concert is not in itself a crime; for associations to
prosecute felons, and even to put laws in force against political offenders,
have been holden legal.57 If, then, there be no indictable offence in the
object; no indictable offence in the means; and no indictable offence in
the concert, in what part of the conduct of the conspirators is the offence
to be found? Can several circumstances, each perfectly lawful, make up
an unlawful act? And yet such is the general language held on this sub-
ject, that at one time the immorality of the object is relied on; at another,
the evidence of the means; while, at all times, the concert is stated to be
the essence of the charge; and yet that concert, independent of an
illegal object or illegal means, is admitted to be blameless."
The answer which naturally suggests itself to such arguments

is that just as in chemistry the combination of A, B, and C, all
non-poisonous substances, may form a new compound, D, poison-
ous and quite different from the elements of which it is composed.
so in criminal law separate acts, each alone perfectly lawful, may,
when combined together, constitute such an anti-social effect that
the actors' conduct as a whole becomes criminal. The mere act
of crooking a finger on the trigger of a gun is not of itself neces-
sarily unlawful; neither is there necessarily any criminality in the
mere act of pointing a gun, nor in the act of loading one. Yet
when all these acts are combined, in certain circumstances the re-
sultant effect may constitute a crime. So, a single man blowing
a whistle on the streets at night might constitute no nuisance;
but if a hundred men did identically the same thing in combina-
tion, they might easily be indictable for creating a public nuisance.
But such an answer does not explain away all of the difficulty.
56 Wm. DICKINSON, A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO THE QUARTER SESSIONS, 3 ed. by T. N.

Talfourd (I829), P. 20I.
57 R. v. Murray, tried before Abbot, C. J., at Guildhall, I823; cited in I BURN,
JUSTICE OF THE PEACE, 30 ed., p. 976.

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CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY 4II
It leaves unexplained how it is that precisely the same effect which

is perfectly lawful when procured by one becomes criminal when
procured by two. When closely analyzed, criminality consists,
not in detached separate acts, but in the anti-social effect of acts.
For instance, in the gun case above suggested, murder is com-
mitted, not where the finger is crooked upon the trigger, but where
the anti-social effect of the act takes place, i. e., where the bullet
hits the victim's body;59 and it is this particular anti-social effect
which is labeled as the crime of murder. To convict a criminal
defendant it is not necessary to prove that he was ever physically
present or that he acted within the state; it is sufficient to show
that the anti-social effect of his acts, committed elsewhere with
mens rea, operated within the state.60 If criminality then consists,
not in mere acts, but in the anti-social effect of acts, must not
criminality be measured by the nature of the effect,6' and not by
the character or number of those whose acts produce that effect?
For instance, in the nuisance case suggested above, if a single man
arranged by steam to blow the same hundred whistles on the
street at night, no one would suppose that he would not be in-
dictable for the nuisance. If criminality is to be measured by the
character of the effect of the defendant's acts, how can it make any
possible difference as to criminality whether the identical effect is
procured by one or two or a hundred? How then can it be said
that if a single individual procures a certain effect by certain means
he is not a criminal, but if a combination of individuals procure
the self-same effect by the self-same means, they are all criminals?
Is such a doctrine logically defensible? 62
58 Acts being defined, in the words of Mr. Holmes, as voluntary "muscular con-
tractions." - HoLmEs, THE COMON LAW, P. 54.
69 See, for example, United States v. Davis, 2 Sumn. (U. S.) 482 (i837); State v.
Hall, II4 N. C. gog, ig S. E. 602 (I894).
60 Of course it is necessary also to show that the anti-social effect is such as con-
stitutes, under the law of the prosecuting state, a criminal offense.
61 If, for example, after the defendant had fired at his victim with full intent to
kill him, the bullet had been deflected perhaps by another bullet, and the victim not
hit, there would have been no crime of murder, although every single act and motive
of the defendant would have been precisely the same.
62 Adherents of the Hawkins doctrine sometimes seek to defend the logic of the
doctrine by its analogy to the offenses of routs and riots. Routs and riots are crimes
which by common law require the concurrence of three or more persons. No matter
how great a tumult a single person may make, he cannot be indicted for a rout or a

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III
But the law, which after all exists primarily to achieve justice
and thus to promote social peace and equilibrium, must not be
bound down too arbitrarily by logical or purely analytical considera-
tions any more than by the iron grip of historical precedents and
correctly traced legal genealogies. If the purpose of legal doctrines
is to promote the social security and well-being, they must be ex-
amined functionally and tested by the degree of protection which
they afford to social and to individual interests or rights.
A law which protects must be a predicable law; indeed one of
the most essential attributes of all law is predicability. It is per-
haps this more than any other factor which makes justice accord-
ing to law preferable to justice without law, as found for example
in legislative or executive justice.63 The excellence of justice ac-
cording to law, or judicial justice, rests upon the fact that judges
are not free to render decisions based purely upon their personal
predilections and peculiar dispositions, no matter how good or
how wise they may be; they are bound by principles embodying
the accumulated wisdom and experience of past ages, and those
principles furnish a fixed standard by which citizens of the state
may measure or shape their conduct and by which the course of
justice can be reasonably foreseen and predicted. Once rob the law
of this predicability, and the state reverts to a government by men
rather than by law. No one will be secure in his or her interests
riot. But the analogy after all is rather superficial. Criminality, here as elsewhere,
is measured by the anti-social effects of the defendants' acts; and in the inherent
nature of things it is impossible for a single individual to produce the effect of a riot.
In other words, a single person is not indictable for a riot, because it is inherently
impossible for him to produce the anti-social effect or criminal consequence known as
a riot; but as to cases of conspiracy it is in fact very frequently possible for a single
individual to procure or cause identically the same criminal consequence as a com-
bination may procure.
63 Interesting examples of legislative justice will be found in the judicial powers
exercised by American colonial legislatures and state legislatures immediately after
the Revolution, such as the issue of bills of attainder, bills of pains and penalties,
legislative granting of new trials, legislative divorce proceedings, insolvency proceed-
ings, etc. See PoUND, OUTLINES OF LECTURES ON JURISPRUDENCE, 3 ed., p. 75. Legis-
lative justice has generally been recognized as capricious, uncertain, and therefore often
unjust and tyrannical, and highly susceptible to prejudice and extra-legal considera-
tions.

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CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY 4I3
or rights, for no one can foretell what interests individual judges

may see fit to protect or to disregard. If the criminal law permits
judges to determine criminality by their own individual standards
and prejudices, we must face again the anxious fears and troubled
insecurity of the old Star Chamber days; decisions will lose their
predicability, and the law will obviously cease to protect.
If a legal doctrine is to be tested functionally according to the
degree of security which it affords to the individual and social in-
terests which the law was created to protect, any doctrine which
tends to rob the law of its predicability, therefore, must be ac-
counted pernicious. It is hard to imagine a doctrine which would
more effectively rob the law of predicability so far as it is appli-
cable than the one that a criminal conspiracy includes combinations
to do anything against the general moral sense of the conmmunity.
Under such a principle every one who acts in co-operation with
another may some day find his liberty dependent upon the innate
prejudices or social bias of an unknown judge. It is the very an-
tithesis of justice according to law. There will be a very real danger
of courts being invoked, especially during periods of reaction, to
punish, as criminal, associations which for the time being are un-
popular or stir up the prejudices of the social class in which the
judges have for the most part been bred.
Certain of the labor cases furnish striking illustrations. For
example, in the case of the Philadelphia Cordwainers,64 where a
group of journeymen cordwainers were tried in i8o6 on an indict-
ment for criminal conspiracy for having agreed together not to
work except for higher wages, the court trying the case was unable
to discover anything criminal in the object of seeking higher wages
or in the means used to obtain that end. Nevertheless, at that
time there prevailed among the upper classes, both in England 65
64 This, it is believed, was the first trial in America of wage-earners as such for trad
union conspiracy. The report of the case was printed as a pamphlet in i8o6; it may
be found reprinted in 3 COMMONS AND GILm1oRE, DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF AMERICAN
INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY, pp. 59-248.
65 During this time the sentiment of the upper classes in England was so hostile
to trade unions that there remained in force from i8oo to I824 the drastic Combina-
tions Act (40 GEO. III, c. io6), which made every journeyman workman who "enters
into any combination to obtain an advance of wages or to lessen or alter the hours of
work" liable to imprisonment.
In America, also, during the entire first third of the nineteenth century the crimi-

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4I4 HARVARD LAW REVIEW
and America, a bitter feeling of hostility against the working classes;

the generally accepted view was that any concerted action by the
workers against their employers must be because of the very nature
of things inherently criminal. One is not surprised, therefore, that
in the Philadelphia Cordwainers' Case the defendants who had
been bold enough to organize a strike for higher wages were found
guilty and branded as criminals; the court was enabled to achieve
the desired result by resorting to the convenient doctrine flowing
from Hawkins' statement of the conspiracy law.
"A combination of workmen," said the court, "to raise their wages
may be considered in a two fold point of view; one is to benefit them-
selves . . . the other is to injure those who do not join their society.
The rule of law condemns both. . . Hawkins, the greatest authority
on the criminal law, has laid it down, that a combination to66 main-
taining one another, carrying a particular object, whether true or false,
is criminal." 67
When journeymen sought to apply the same doctrine against

their employers combining to depress wages, the doctrine was
flexible enough to allow the courts to exercise a very broad dis-
cretion. In the case of Commonwealth v. Carlisle,68 decided in I82I,
where journeymen sought to convict certain master shoemakers
for combining to depress wages, Judge Gibson, groping for some
sound principle upon which to rest the conspiracy cases, felt that
a combination of employers should not be held illegal if it was
formed to oppose a similar combination of employees seeking
nal law was the accepted method for dealing with trade unions. See early cases in
3 & 4 COMMONS & GILMORE, DOCUMENTARY HISTORY.
66 The evident omission appears in COMMONS & GILM1ORE.
67 Quoted from 3 COMMONS & GILm1oRE, DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF AmERICA
INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY, P. 233.
Compare the language used in the New York Hatters' Case of I823. "Journey-
men confederating and refusing to work, unless for certain wages, may be indicted for
a conspiracy, . . . for this offence consists in the conspiracy and not in the refusal;
and all conspiracies are illegal though the subject-matter of them may be lawful. . .
Journeymen may each singly refuse to work, unless they receive an advance in wages,
but if they refuse by preconcert or association they may be indicted and convicted
of conspiracy. . . The gist of a conspiracy is the unlawful confederation, and the
offence is complete when the confederacy is made, and any act done in pursuit of it
is no constituent part of the offence." Quoted from GROAT, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE
STUDY OF ORGANIZED LABOR IN AMERICA, P. 38.
68 Brightly's N. P. Rep. (Pa.) 36 (I82I).

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artificially to raise their wages; his conclusion was that "a com-
bination to resist oppression, not merely supposed but real, would
be perfectly innocent; for where the act to be done and the means
of accomplishing it are lawful, and the object to be attained is
meritorious, combination is not conspiracy." 69 The court finally
decided that the defendants were not guilty unless they should be
proved "to have been actuated by an improper motive."
It may be that these two decisions were right or it may be they
were wrong; the point is that the application of the Hawkins
doctrine of criminal conspiracy rendered the law applicable to
labor combinations either very unpredicable or highly unjust.
Since that day some of the prejudice and much of the bitterness
against labor unions has passed away. The courts have in a meas-
ure corrected their mistakes; they universally to-day declare the
legality and even the social necessity under modern industrial
organization of trade-union associations and organized effort on
the part of employees.70 But in spite of all, there still lurks in many
minds considerable of the ancient feeling; and even to-day de-
cisions are to be found where the courts have resorted to the same
vague conspiracy doctrine in order to hold criminal the members
of trade unions whose concerted conduct tended in the judge's
eyes to injure the social welfare, but in whose individual conduct
69 Brightly's N. P. Rep. (Pa.) 42 (I82I).

70 See, for instance, the recent pronouncement of the United States Supreme Court
in the case of American Steel Foundries v. The Tri-City Central Trades Council,
U. S. Sup. Ct., October Term, I92I (decision rendered Dec. 5, I92I), where Mr. Chief
Justice Taft, rendering the opinion of the court, says (at page I3): "Labor unions
are recognized by the Clayton Act as legal when instituted for mutual help and law-
fully carrying out their legitimate objects. They have long been thus recognized by
the courts. They were organized out of the necessities of the situation. A single em-
ployee was helpless in dealing with an employer. He was dependent ordinarily on his
daily wage for the maintenance of himself and family. If the employer refused to pay
him the wages that he thought fair, he was nevertheless unable to leave the employ
and to resist arbitrary and unfair treatment. Union was essential to give laborers
opportunity to deal on equality with their employer. They united to exert influence
upon him and to leave him in a body in order by this inconvenience to induce him to
make better terms with them. They were withholding their labor of economic value
to make him pay what they thought it was worth. The right to combine for such a
lawful purpose has in many years not been denied by any court. The strike became
a lawful instrument in a lawful economic struggle or competition between employer
and employees as to the share or division between them of the joint product of labor
and capital."

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the court could find nothing criminal.7' The consequence of such

decisions is that trade-union members, forced by our competitive
system to fight bitter economic battles both against non-union
employees and against employers intent upon driving down the
price of labor, feel themselves in constant danger of being sent to
jail as conspirators and criminals; and the consequent fear and sense
of injustice bred by such cases has clearly not made for social peace.
Among those who depart from the historically correct doctrine
that either criminal means or a criminal end must be proved to
constitute a criminal conspiracy, there is, almost inevitably, the
widest disagreement. Some would hold criminal a combination
to commit any act contra bonos mores or offensive to the general
moral sense of the community. Others would confine the crime
of conspiracy to combinations to commit only illegal acts, includ-
ing under "illegal" breaches of contract as well as torts; still
others would confine the offense to combinations to commit torts;
and a fourth group would find a crime in the case of some torts
and not of others. The wideness of this disagreement itself makes
for great unpredicability. If the doctrine includes combinations
to commit acts contra bonos mores, it amounts to nothing more nor
less than a device to convict defendants who concededly have
violated no pre-established law whenever individual judges deem
it for the interest of society so to do, - a return to justice without
law. If the doctrine is confined to combinations to commit some
kinds of torts but not all, there is an almost equal lack of pred-
icability; for the courts which have suggested this have found
it so impossible to draw the line between those torts which will
make a combination to procure them criminal and those which
will not that they have scarcely even attempted it; and utter un-
predicability results. If the doctrine covers combinations to com-
mit all torts, the objections based on lack of predicability lose much
of their weight. But new objections arise. The result would be
practically to turn every tort, planned by more than one person,
into a crime. That is, the courts would be adding to the penalty
worked out by the law of torts (compensation), an added criminal
punishment (imprisonment) wherever more than one helped to
procure the act which constitutes the tort. This would mean a
71 See, for example, State v. Dalton, I34 Mo. App. 5I7, II4 S. W. II32 (I908).

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revolutionary step in the law, and one of very questionable policy,

to say the least.72 Have courts, in the entire absence of legislation,
a right by judicial decision alone to take such a revolutionary
step?
In spite of countless assertions in the older cases that judges
find the law but do not make it, we must recognize frankly that
courts do make law or legislate, and further that that is a neces-
sary part of their judicial function. Nevertheless, one must not
lose sight of the fact that judicial legislation must always differ
fundamentally from legislative law making. The latter is governed
purely by expediency. The legislator's only guiding principles are
the economic or social or political welfare of his people. His eye
must be to the future; precedents mean nothing to him. The
judge, on the other, hand, in making new law is not free to follow
his own ideas of what would make for the social or economic wel-
fare of the people. He is bound and restrained by established
and recognized legal doctrines and principles. For instance, no
matter how firmly convinced a common-law judge might be that
the Anglo-American doctrine that consideration is necessary to
make a promise binding is immoral and unsocial, no matter how
strongly he may feel that the continental doctrine requiring no
consideration for contracts would better promote the general
welfare, the judge would have no right by judicial legislation to
overturn at a stroke the established and well-recognized principle
underlying the common law of contracts. No one has stated this
better than Justice Holmes, in the case of Stack v. New York, etc.
Railroad.73
"We agree," he says, "that, in view of the great increase of actions

for personal injuries, it may be desirable that the courts should have
the power in dispute. We appreciate the ease with which, if we were care-
less or ignorant of precedent, we might deem it enlightened to assume
that power. We do not forget the continuous process of developing the
law that goes on through the courts, in the form of deduction, or deny
that in a clear case it might be possible even to break away from a line
of decisions in favor of some rule generally admitted to be based upon
72 There would seem to be little room for doubt that no court or legislature, squarely
facing and comprehending the situation, would be willing to turn every tort planned
by more than one, into a crime.
73 I77 Mass. I55, I58, 58 N. E. 686 (I900).

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a deeper insight into the present wants of society. But the improvements
made by the courts are made, almost invariably, by very slow degrees
and by very short steps. Their general duty is not to change but to
work out the principles already sanctioned by the practice of the past.
No one supposes that a judge is at liberty to decide with sole reference
even to his strongest convictions of policy and right. His duty in general
is to develop the principles which he finds, with such consistency as he
may be able to attain."
Seventeen years later, speaking in the United States Supreme

Court, in the case of Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen,74 Justice Holmes
again admirably expressed the same idea.
"I recognize without hesitation," he said, "that judges do and must

legislate, but they can do so only interstitially; they are confined from
molar to molecular motions. A common-law judge could not say I
think the doctrine of consideration a bit of historical nonsense and shall
not enforce it in my court. No more could a judge exercising the limited
jurisdiction of admiralty say I think well of the common-law rules of
master and servant and propose to introduce them here en bloc."
Thus it would seem clear that even were it wise to take such a
step as to turn into crimes when planned by more than one person
all those acts 75 which through long-established usage have come
to be held tortious but not criminal, no judge by the method of
judicial legislation has the right to do so. A step of so very ques-
tionable a nature and so revolutionary and sweeping in its char-
acter must be taken, if at all, by the legislature. During the
seventeenth century, when the law was undergoing a period of
exceptional and vigorous growth, when morals were being largely
infused into the law and many new doctrines introduced, the courts
went much further in judicial legislation than to-day. Yet even
the seventeenth-century judges never went so far as to lay down
the doctrine that all combinations to commit torts are criminal.
Those who preach the doctrine that a conspiracy may be criminal
although neither the means used nor the end pursued is criminal,
resort for the most part to an argument founded upon the danger
of combinations to the community. If it is the function of the
74 244 U. S. 205, 22I (I9I7).
75 As is readily apparent from the context, the word "acts" here is used in its
common sense of including not simply "voluntary muscular contractions," but the
immediate and direct effects of such voluntary muscular contractions as well.

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CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY 4I9
criminal law to protect the social welfare, they argue, whatever

causes peculiar danger to the social welfare should come under the
ban of the criminal law. Although a single individual's design to
commit a tort is not usually criminal because not of sufficient danger
to the state, yet where several combine and conspire to commit a
tortious act, the increased power for wrong is so magnified, the
danger to the public welfare which arises from such a nefarious
plotting is so threatening, that the criminal law should be extended
to cover this increased danger. As Bishop says in his Criminal
Law,76 adopting the words of the English Criminal Law Commis-
sioners of I843:
"The general principle on which the crime of conspiracy is founded is

this, that the confederacy of several persons to effect any injurious ob-
ject creates such a new and additional power to cause injury as requires
criminal restraint; although none would be necessary were the same thing
proposed, or even attempted to be done, by any person singly." 77
Such forms of statement are very persuasive. One does not wonder
that the idea has gained many adherents. Yet the danger argu-
ment is open to serious objection. The short answer to it is that
if every combination to commit a tortious act does in fact so in-
crease the danger to the state that the criminal law should under-
take to prevent it, it is for the legislature, and not for the courts, to
make the first move in the matter. It is always open to the legis-
lature to declare what is so dangerous to the state that it should
be branded as criminal. It is not open to the courts by sweeping
judicial legislation to turn into common-law crimes every combina-
tion to commit a tortious act.
But there is another objection to the danger argument which
76 2 BIsHoP, NEW CRIMINAL LAW, ? i8o, quoting from Seventh Rep. Crim. Law
Com., I843, p. 90.
77 A number of judges have expressed the same idea. See, for instance, State v.
Dalton, I34 Mo. App. 5I7, 535, II4 S. W. II32 (I908), where Justice Nortoni, ren-
dering the decision in a lower Missouri court, says: "It may be stated as a general
proposition that where an additional power or enhanced ability to accomplish an
injurious purpose arises by virtue of the confederation and concert of action, an ele-
ment of criminal coxispiracy is thereby introduced which will render sufficiently
criminal either the means or the purpose otherwise merely unlawful, to sustain a con-
viction, although the means or the end were not such as are indictable if performed by
a single individual." See also Comm. v. Judd, 2 Mass. 329, 337 (I807), per Parsons,
C. J.; United States v. Lancaster, 44 Fed. 896 (I89I) (per Spear, J.).

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perhaps strikes still deeper. The whole argument is based essen-

tially upon a false premise. It is based upon the sweeping gen-
eralization that the design to commit acts which are tortious or
which are contra bonos mores is of far greater danger to the state
when conceived by a combination than when conceived by a single
person. But in these days of huge and powerful corporations,
which form in the eyes of the law single persons, such a generaliza-
tion would seem far too sweeping to accord with the actual facts
of every-day life. Why should the law be such that if two steel
workers plan a certain act which the law regards as tortious, they
should be subject to fine and imprisonment; but if, let us say, the
United States Steel Corporation plans and executes the self-same
act, the criminal law should be unable to touch it? Is the danger
to the state really greater in the first case than in the second?
Why should a combination of individuals to commit an act which
the law regards perhaps as tortious but not as criminal constitute
a crime if the individuals are not incorporated, but be free from
crime if they are incorporated? Is that justice? Is not the gen-
eralization upon which the danger argument is based, after all,
far too hastily made and too frequently out of accord with existing
facts, to furnish a sound basis for an all-important legal doctrine?
IV
So far as the state of authorities goes, apart from one outstand-

ing exception it is exceedingly doubtful whether the majority
of actual decisions, either in England or America, supports the
constantly reiterated statement that to constitute a criminal con-
spiracy neither the object pursued nor the means used need neces-
sarily be crminal. The fraud cases constitute the exception.
They follow the doctrine which arose out of the seventeenth cen-
tury development of the law of cheats. During the seventeenth
and the earlier part of the eighteenth centuries the law of cheats
was very unsettled; and numerous cases were prosecuted, some
under individual indictments and others under indictments for
conspiracy, which did not involve public frauds and which did not
fall strictly under the statute of false tokens.78 Unconsciously,
these seventeenth and eighteenth century courts were greatly ex-
78 33 HEN. VIII, C. I.

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CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY 42I
tending the law of cheats so as to make

to prevailing ideas of morality. When, later in the eighteenth cen-
tury, the courts began to recede from their seventeenth-century
pretensions, several cases were decided holding that private un-
fair dealings where no false token was used were not indictable in
the case of individuals; 79 but in the case of conspiracies, the courts
reserved their criminality. What followed was perhaps only
natural. The notorious deficiencies of the criminal law of cheats
provoked the judges into supplying its gaps through the method
of criminal conspiracy; what really amounted to judicial legisla-
tion to cure the shortcomings of the misshapen criminal law and
the silence of the legislators, was hidden behind the convenient
Hawkins doctrine. The judges felt the injustice of allowing bands
of manifest criminals, combining to defraud others of their prop-
erty, from escaping punishment because of the criminal law's
absurd deficiencies; and the result was that hard cases made bad
law. In view of what has already been said the doctrine of these
fraud cases, allowing conspiracy indictments where the fraud
would not of itself be indictable would theoretically seem open to
very serious question; but in view of the numerous decisions sup-
porting this doctrine in cases of fraudulent representations, the
fraud cases must be recognized as an acknowledged exception to
the general rule. The effect of the doctrine upon modern law is in
many respects very unfortunate. The law of criminal conspiracy
as to fraud cases has lost well-nigh all predicability; it is almost
impossible to-day to foretell whether a conspiracy conviction can
be had for concerted misrepresentation or not. No one knows ex-
actly what constitutes the fraud necessary to support such a con-
viction. Must it be such fraud as would be good ground for setting
aside a contract? Or must it be such as would support an action
for damages? Does it differ from the kind of pretense necessary
to support an indictment for obtaining property by false pretenses,
and if so, in just what respect? Will a mere false promise suffice?
Where the purpose to cheat is plain, but the proposed deceit is
such that it could not possibly actually deceive the victims, may
a conspiracy indictment be had? A glance through the innumer-
79 See, for instance, Rex v. Wilders, cited in 2 Burr. at II28 (I720); Rex v. Bryan,
2 Stra. 866 (I730); Rex v. Wheatley, 2 Burr. II25 (I76I).

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able fraud cases is sufficient to reveal the legal morass into which
the law has strayed as a result of following in these cases the
Hawkins doctrine.
Quite apart from the fraud cases, the notion gleaned from the
Hawkins statement and from the leading text-writers who have
been following in Hawkins' footsteps ever since, has gained the
widest currency. If one were to consider all the dicta and unsup-
ported statements of judges and text-writers, he would unques-
tionably find the very great majority in support of the doctrine
that to constitute a conspiracy neither the end pursued nor the
means used need necessarily be criminal. Such is the common
statement, which in the words of Hobbes passes "like gaping from
mouth to mouth." Yet the actual decisions, apart from the fraud
cases, lend small support to the prevalent conceptions. State-
ments are copied from one text-book into another, and then into
the encyclopeedias of law; and long and formidable lists of cases
are cited to support the statements. But when these lists of cases
are carefully analyzed, it will be found that frequently the majority
of them are cited for mere dicta or loose general remarks; and that
of the actual decisions, not since overruled, almost all are fraud
cases.
Two illustrations will suffice. Bishop in his Criminal Law,
speaking of the crime of conspiracy, says: 80 "The unlawful thing
proposed, whether as a means or an end, need not, to constitute a
punishable conspiracy, be such as would be indictable if proposed
or even done by a single individual." In support of thiis statement
he cites three American and two English cases. Of the three Ameri-
can cases, State v. Rowley,8' is a conspiracy to cheat and defraud
and apparently fell directly within the terms of a state statute
against cheating by false pretenses; State v. Burnham,82 has been
in effect apparently overruled by State v. Straw;83 and People v.
Richards 4 seems to have been also overruled by Alderman v.
People.85 The American cases cited, therefore, furnish very doubt-
ful support for Bishop's statement. Of the two English cases cited
both are conspiracies to cheat and defraud.
80 2 BISHOP, NEW Clum. LAW, 8 ed., ? i8i (i). 81 I2 Conn. IOI (I837).
82 I5 N. H. 396 (I844). 83 42 N. H. 393 (i86i).
84 I Mich. 2I6 (I849). 85 4 Mich. 414, 432 (I857).

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Among the more recent statements is that in the encyclopeedia

of law now being prepared under the name of Corpus Juris. Under
the heading of "Conspiracy" occurs the following unqualified
statement: 86 "It is not essential, however, to criminal liability
that the acts contemplated should constitute a criminal offense for
which, without the elements of conspiracy, one alone could be
indicted." This statement is supported by so long a list of cases
(with none cited contra) that he must be bold of heart who would
venture to deny the authority back of the statement. Yet if one
has the patience to analyze the decisions, case by case, as authori-
ties for the statement quoted they fall like a house of cards. In
all, thirty-seven American cases are cited. Of these, no less than
ten are apparently conspiracies to commit criminal offenses, and
therefore have no authority beyond that of mere dicta; seven are
indictments under state statutes relating to conspiracy; three are
civil actions; two have in effect been overruled by later cases
within the jurisdiction; and in two the defendants were held not
guilty. Sixteen of the decisions were fraud cases. When one thus
analyzes the long list of authorities, he finds that, apart from the
fraud cases, there are at most six or seven actual decisions sup-
porting the statement. Of these, two were early cases for seducing
or enticing away an infant girl without her father's consent, -
cases which, like the fraud decisions, should perhaps be recognized
as another exception to the ordinary doctrine; 87 two were in lower
state courts, and should therefore hardly be regarded as authorita-
tive, at least outside of Missouri and New Jersey, where they were
decided. Of the two remaining cases, one is State v. Donaldson,88
which was said in the later New Jersey case of Jersey City Printing
Co. v. Cassidy,89 to embody a doctrine which "may be regarded as
entirely exploded," 90 and the other was State v. Bienstock,91 which
probably should be classed among the fraud cases. "We think,
86 I2 C. J. 547
87 Such cases seem to rest largely upon the authority of the English eighteen
century case of Rex v. Delaval, 3 Burr. I434 (I763). But, as Wright remarks (CRIMI-
NAL CONSPIRACY, P. 32): "It can hardly be doubted that . . . the acts proposed
were indictable at the date" of that case, "independently of combination, on the
principle . . . that conduct grossly contrary to public morals or public decency was
punishable irrespectively of combination."
88 32 N. J. L. I5I (I867). 89 63 N. J. Eq. 759, 762, 53 Atl. 230 (I902).
90 See quotation in note 5I, supra. 91 78 N. J. L. 256, 73 Atl. 530 (I90

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therefore," said the court in reaching its decision 92 "that the ob-
ject of the conspiracy was unlawful, . . . and that this unlawful
object was designed to be accomplished by deceit and fraud, was
a cheat reaching large numbers of persons and tended to their
oppression." 93
On the following page of Corpus Juris the further statement is
made 94 that "it will be enough if the acts contemplated are cor-
rupt, dishonest, fraudulent, or immoral, and in that sense illegal."
But five American cases and one English case are cited in support
of this. Of the five American cases, the first is one where the de-
fendants were held not guilty; the second is the decision of merely
a lower state court; the third case seems to have been later over-
ruled; the fourth was the case of a conspiracy to commit an act
which was illegal; 95 and the fifth was a conspiracy to commit a
criminal offense. The English case of Rex v. Delaval was a con-
spiracy to commit what was probably a criminal offense.96
These examples will suffice to show how plentiful and common
are loose dicta scattered through the cases following the Hawkins
doctrine, but how few actual decisions, apart from the fraud cases,
can be actually mustered out in its support. On the other hand,
decisions are not lacking which squarely decide against the Hawkins
doctrine. In Rex v. Turner,97 already discussed, Lord Ellen-
borough clearly rejects the doctrine; and although the decision
has been criticized by some,98 it has been followed by later cases,
such as Rex v. Pywell.99 Similar decisions are to be found among
the American cases. In the case of Commonwealth v. Prius,100 for
instance, Justice Bigelow refused to convict for a conspiracy to
overinsure certain goods, saying: "It was not a crime in the de-
92 78 N. J. L. 256, 274, 73 AtL. 530 (I909).

93 One other possible decision in support of the text statement, not a fraud case, is
Lanasa v. State, I09 Md. 602, 7I Atl. I058 (I909). This was an indictment for a con-
spiracy willfully and maliciously to injure and destroy property. But in this case the
evidence seems abundantly to prove the commission of acts which would be criminal
quite apart from the combination or conspiracy.
94 I2 C. J. 548.
95 See 78 N. J. L., 256, 274, where the court says, "We think therefore that the
object of the conspiracy was unlawful."
96 See note 87, supra. 97 I3 East 228 (i8ii).
93 See, for instance, Lord Campbell, C. J., in Reg. v. Rowland
(i85I)
99 i Starkie, 402 (i8I6). 100 9 Gray (Mass.) I27 (I857).

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fendants to procure an over-insurance on their stock in trade. It

was at most only a civil wrong. The charge of a conspiracy to do
so does not therefore amount to a criminal offence."
In some jurisdictions special statutes have been passed to regu-

late the law of conspiracy; certain of these set at rest such ques-
tions as have formed the subject of the foregoing discussion. In
the federal courts, for instance, the Hawkins doctrine no longer
lives. The federal conspiracy statute 101 provides that
" If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against
the United States, or to defraud the United States in any manner or for
any purpose, and one or more of such parties do any act to effect the
object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be
fined not more than ten thousand dollars, imprisoned not more than
five years, or both."
This important statute, as is evident from its terms, follows in the

main sound principles of law, and except in cases of defrauding
makes impossible a federal conspiracy conviction where no federal
criminal offense has been conspired. What uncertainty has arisen
from the act has centered chiefly in the somewhat doubtful meaning
of the words, "defraud the United States." 102 It will be noticed
that the statute, unlike the common law, requires the commission
of some overt act other than the mere act of conspiring.103
In conclusion, the fundamental similarity may be pointed out
between the principles of the law of criminal and those of civil
conspiracy. The one is a crime and the other a tort, and naturally,
therefore, certain marked differences must exist between them.104
101 U. S. COMP. STAT., I9I8, ? I020I.

1'2 See 2 ZoLINE, FEDERAL CRIMINAL LAW, ?? I038 et seq.
103 In a number of states important conspiracy statutes exist, which must often be
referred to in order to avoid misunderstanding the significance of decisions rendered
within such states. See, for example, the New York Conspiracy statute (N. Y. PENAL
LAW, ? 580).
104 The differences between criminal and civil conspiracy need not here be dwelt
upon. The most striking difference is as to the necessity of some overt act. Since
civil conspiracy is a tort, and since the tort remedy is compensation paid for damages
suffered, no right of action exists without proof of damage; and damage comes through
overt acts. In other words, unlike the law of criminal conspiracy, in civil conspiracy
some overt act other than the mere conspiring must be proved. As the courts say,

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426 HARVARD LAWV REVIEW
Yet the fundamental principles underlying the two are essentially

the same. Just as in criminal conspiracy acts not criminal when
committed by individuals should not be held criminal when com-
mitted by combinations, so in civil conspiracy acts not tortious
when committed by individuals should not be held tortious when
committed by combinations. The mere combination cannot add
illegality in the latter case any more than it can add criminality in
the former. Yet, as in the criminal conspiracy cases, there is a
prevalent and widespread notion abroad that in some mystical
way a combination can be called a conspiracy and conspiracy lends
illegality. It is only another phase of the same confusion of thought
already discussed. In the case of Lindsay and Company v. Mon-
tana Federation of Labor,105 the court squarely rejects such a doc-
trine in these words: 106
"There can be found running through our legal literature many re-
markable statements that an act perfectly lawful when done by one per-
son becomes by some sort of legerdemain criminal when done by two or
more persons acting in concert, and this upon the theory that the con-
certed action amounts to a conspiracy. But with this doctrine we do
not agree. If an individual is clothed with a right when acting alone,
he does not lose such right merely by acting with others, each of whom
is clothed with the same right. If the act done is lawful, the combination
of several persons to commit it does not render it unlawful. In other
words, the mere combination of action is not an element which gives
character to the act."
So, Justice Holmes, in his dissenting opinion in the case of

Vegelahn v. Guntner,107 said:
" But there is a notion which latterly has been insisted on a good de
that a combination of persons to do what any one of them lawfully m
do by himself will make the otherwise lawful conduct unlawful. It wo
be rash to say that some as yet unformulated truth may not be hidd
under this proposition. But in the general form in which it has been
presented and accepted by many courts, I think it plainly untrue, both
on authority and on principle."
the gist of the action is the damage, and not the conspiracy. In Savile v. Roberts,
i Ld. Raym. 374, 378, it was said: "An action will not lie for the greatest conspiracy
imaginable, if nothing be put in execution; but if the party be damaged, the action
will lie." See also Adler v. Fenton, 24 How. (U. S.) 407 (i86o).
105 37 Mont. 264, 96 Pac. I27 (I908). 106 Ibid., 273.
107 I67 Mass. 92, I07, io8, 44 N. E. I077 (I896).

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And Chief Justice Parker, rendering the opinion of the court in

National Protective Association v. Cumming,108 expressed the same
idea when he said: "Whatever one man may do alone, he may do
in combination with others provided they have no unlawful object
in view. Mere numbers do not ordinarily affect the quality of the
act." 109
Perhaps enough has been said to make it evident that it is high
time to abandon the prevalent and often repeated idea that mere
combination in itself can add criminality or illegality to acts other-
wise free from them. Such a doctrine grew out of an historical
mistake, and has no real basis in our law. It is logically unsound
and indefensible. Moreover, it is dangerous. It tends to rob the
law of predicability, and to make justice depend too often upon
the chance prejudices and convictions of individual judges. It has
tended to make the law chaotic and formless in precisely those
situations where the salvation of our troubled times most demands a
precise and understandable law. Because under its cover judges
are often free to legislate or to decide great social issues largely in
accordance with their personal convictions, it has rendered the
courts open to the bitter and constant cry of class partisanship.
It is a doctrine as anomalous and provincial as it is unhappy in its
results. It is utterly unknown to the Roman law; it is not found
in modern Continental codes; few Continental lawyers ever heard
of it. It is a fortunate circumstance that it is not encrusted so
deep in our jurisprudence by past decisions of our courts that we
are unable to slough it off altogether. It is a doctrine which has
proved itself the evil genius of our law wherever it has touched it.
May the time not be long delayed in coming when it will be
nothing more than a shadow stalking through past cases, - when
the Hawkins doctrine at last will be conclusively laid to rest !
Requiescat in pace !
Francis B. Sayre.
HARVARD LAW SCHOOL.
108 I70 N. Y. 3I5, 63 N. E. 369 (I902).

109 See also Bohn Mfg. Co. v. Hollis, 54 Minn. 223, 234, 55 N. W. iii9 (I893);
Macauley Bros. v. Tierney, i9 R. I. 255, 264, 33 Atl. i (I895); Clemmitt v. Watson,
I4 Ind. App. 38, 42 N. E. 367 (I895). Needless to say, numerous statements are also
to be found holding to the contrary.

152.58.128.70 on Sat, 19 Oct 2024 13:20:01 UTC

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Sayre CriminalConspiracy 1922

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Criminal Conspiracy

Author(s): Francis B. Sayre

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1328648

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IN those fields of industrial controversy where passion runs high

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for their decisions is nothing short of a misfortune. It would seem,

3 BRACTON: DE LEGIBUS ET CONSUETUDINIBUS ANGLIAE, f. I43. Compare GLAN-

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without incurring the personal risk dependent upon the outcome

"Forasmuch as many, through Malice intending to grieve other, do

Other statutes were passed allowing recovery by writ out of

6 First Ordinance of Conspirators, TOMLIN'S STAT. AT L., 20 EDW. I, P. 399. "Our

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"Conspirators be they that do confeder or bind themselves by Oath,

Finally, the Statute of 4 Edw. III, c. ii (I330), made conspiracy

8 "The earliest meaning of conspiracy was thus a combination to carry on legal

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We have the record of a case decided in I35I I wherein the court

9 Anon., Year Book, 24 EDW. III, f. 75, pL. 99.

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For instance, as Justice Holmes has poin

19 Hyde v. United States, 225 U. S. 347, 388 (I9I2).

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manner of misgovernment; so that no w

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allowed a conspiracy conviction for a combination to commit an

26 WRIGHT, LAW OF CONSPIRACY, 67.

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course of time, the statement came to be regarded as authorita-

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statute,32 passed the preceding year, which expressly made it

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the ghost of Hawkins still walked. Hawk

34 i RiCHARiD BURN, THE JUSTICE OF THE PEACE, 4 ed., p. 276.

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without doing the least violence to the language, be interpreted

40 I Mood. & Rob. I79 (I832). 41 40 GEO. III, C. io6.

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men would support the indictment. . . ." 4 The case illustrates,

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individuals" committed in other fields of trade competition have

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complete. It will be enough if they are corrupt, dishonest, fraudulent,

Such language sounds more as though it had been written by

Thus far the doctrine that a combination to commit a non-

55 See infra, p. 422 et seq.

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any criminality? The mere act of combining can surely not be

"It is not easy to understand on what principle conspiracies have

The answer which naturally suggests itself to such arguments

56 Wm. DICKINSON, A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO THE QUARTER SESSIONS, 3 ed. by T. N.

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It leaves unexplained how it is that precisely the same effect which

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or rights, for no one can foretell what interests individual judges