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124 Yale L. J. 92 (2014-2015)
Criminal Attempts

handle is hein.journals/ylr124 and id is 100 raw text is: GIDEON YAFFE Criminal Attempts A B ST R ACT. The intuitive idea that failed attempts to complete crimes are often themselves crimes belies the complexity and confusion surrounding the adjudication of criminal attempts. This Article offers an account of the grounds for the criminalization of attempt that provides the courts with sorely needed substantive guidance about precisely which kinds of behavior consti- tute a criminal attempt. The Article focuses on three well-known problems in the adjudication of attempt that have been particularly baffling both to courts and to commentators: specifying the line between solicitation and attempt; determining the conditions under which an impossible attempt is still criminal; and identifying the relevance of abandonment to responsibility for and sentencing of attempts. The Article proposes specific doctrinal recommendations for adjudicat- ing all three kinds of attempts; these recommendations are implied by the conceptual framework developed here for thinking about attempt. A U T H O R. Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy & Psychology, Yale Law School. So many people have helped with the development of this project over the years that it is absolutely impossible to thank them all. I start by thanking the authors of the many published critical commentaries on my earlier work on attempt. Their work has benefited the present project im- mensely: Larry Alexander, Mitch Berman, Michael Bratman, David Brink, Jan Broersen, Antony Duff, David Enoch, Leora Dahan-Katz, Doug Husak, Alfred Mele, Michael Moore, Thomas Nadelhoffer, Steven Sverdlik, and Alec Walen. Thanks are also owed to my former colleagues at the University of Southern California, conversations with whom forced me to figure out what I really think, and to re-think that. Thanks in this respect are especially owed to Steve Finlay, Greg Keating, Andrei Marmor, Jacob Ross, Mark Schroeder, Scott Soames, and Gary Watson. And, finally, thanks to my new colleagues at Yale Law School, especially Bruce Ackerman, Tracey Meares, Robert Post, Jed Rubenfeld, and Scott Shapiro, for encouraging me to seek a broader audience for this work than I am naturally wont to do. In addition, invaluable help was provided by Ben Eidelson. To describe his contribution as that of a research assistant is to radically un- derstate the case. 92