Booth v. State

Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
398 P.2d 863 (1964)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

A defendant cannot be convicted of an attempt to commit a crime if the consummation of the intended act would not have constituted a crime. This is known as the doctrine of legal impossibility, which serves as a valid defense to a charge of a criminal attempt.

Facts:

Charley Stanford, a known thief, stole a cashmere coat from a parked car.
Stanford called his attorney, John Fletcher Booth, Jr., offering to sell him the coat for $20, and they arranged to meet at Stanford's home.
Before the meeting, police arrested Stanford, who was wearing the stolen coat, and he confessed.
The police recovered the coat, and the owner identified it as his property.
With Stanford's cooperation, police officers set up a sting operation at Stanford's home, using the recovered coat as bait.
Booth arrived at Stanford's home, where Stanford told him the coat was 'hot.'
Booth took possession of the coat, stated he knew how to 'handle things like this,' and placed it in the trunk of his car.
Police then arrested Booth and recovered the coat from his vehicle.

Procedural Posture:

John Fletcher Booth, Jr. was charged by information with Receiving Stolen Property in the District Court of Oklahoma County, a trial court.
At the conclusion of the trial, the judge instructed the jury to consider only the lesser included offense of Attempt to Receive Stolen Property.
A jury found Booth guilty of Attempt to Receive Stolen Property and recommended a sentence of two years in prison and a $150 fine.
The trial court entered a judgment and sentence based on the jury's verdict.
Booth, as appellant, appealed the judgment and sentence to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals.

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Issue:

Can a defendant be convicted of an attempt to receive stolen property when, unknown to the defendant, the property had been recovered by the police and therefore lost its legal status as 'stolen' at the time of the transaction?

Opinions:

Majority - Nix, Judge

No, a defendant cannot be convicted of an attempt to receive stolen property if the property has lost its stolen character. The court held that to be guilty of an attempt, the underlying crime must have been possible to commit. Here, once the police recovered the coat and the owner identified it, the property was no longer legally considered 'stolen.' Therefore, it was legally impossible for Booth to commit the crime of Receiving Stolen Property, regardless of his criminal intent. The court distinguished between 'legal impossibility' (where the intended act is not a crime, which is a valid defense) and 'factual impossibility' (where an extraneous factual circumstance prevents the completion of a crime, which is not a defense). Because Booth's intended act of receiving the coat was not the crime of receiving 'stolen' property, he could not be convicted of attempting to do so. The court adopted the reasoning of New York's People v. Jaffe and rejected the contrary approach taken by California, noting that a person cannot be punished for a criminal mind alone without a corresponding criminal act.

Analysis:

This decision establishes the legal impossibility doctrine as a defense to attempt crimes in Oklahoma, aligning the state with a more traditional common law view. The court's ruling creates a significant loophole where a defendant with clear criminal intent can escape liability if the crime is impossible for a purely legal reason, as opposed to a factual one. The opinion's explicit call for legislative action to adopt a modern penal code approach, which would eliminate this defense, highlights the tension between judicial restraint and perceived public policy needs. This case serves as a key example of the historic split among jurisdictions on how to handle attempt crimes where the defendant's subjective intent conflicts with objective reality.

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