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07/19/2003 Archived Entry: "Wikipedia on Conspiracy"

Wikipedia on Conspiracy: Under the ancient common law when two or more people plan to commit a crime their act of planning, i.e. conspiracy, may create criminal liability. The English Court of the Star Chamber decided in the 17th century that only an agreement was needed between two people for conspiracy to be found. In the federal and state jurisdictions of the United States 'conspiracy to commit a crime' is a criminal act. In United States v. Shabani (1994), the Supreme Court ruled: "...Congress intended to adopt the common law definition of conspiracy, which does not make the doing of any act other than the act of conspiring a condition of liability..." Note that a "conspiracy", under laws in the United States does not require there to be more than one person involved for a finding of criminal liability. --- from article on Actus reus{Actus reus (from Latin, "bad act") is the action (or inaction, in the case of criminal negligence and similar crimes which are sometimes called acts of omission) which, in combination with the mens rea ("bad mind"), produces criminal liability in common law based criminal law jurisdictions such as the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. According to criminal jurisprudence, there must be a concurrence of both actus reus and mens rea for a crime to have been committed.}

[note - this is not definitive --- just an interesting comment] ... some Conspiracy Fiction can be found here.