Suppose some guy tries to hire me to kill someone. Instead, I go to the cops to set this guy up. I get wired and meet him and he gives me 20K. The cops swoop in and ultimately convict him of murder. The money was confiscated to be used as evidence.
Do I have any claim to recover the money after the trial? He paid me before the bust.
Well, they couldn’t convict him for murder, unless you, or he actually did the job. They might convict him for conspiracy to commit murder though.
I don’t know the answer to the rest of your question.
Under what theory is the money yours? Yes, he paid you before being arrested, but (a) you didn’t do the work, and (b) the contract was unenforceable as against public policy.
Absent any forfeiture laws in the jurisdiction, the money belongs to the accused after its use at trial.
Yeah. That public policy argument will be the clincher. Murder for hire contracts are unenforceable (I don’t think I need to cite authority for this proposition). And here is another good argument: Fraud. You took the money under false pretenses because (as you admit) you never intended to do the job.
i reckon you can’t be charged with contract fraud if it was an illegal contract to begin with
Nobody would “charge” you with anything. But there is no contract because the money was obtained by fraud. The contracting party never intended to perform the contract, and therefore did not intend to be bound.
Therefore, if you filed a lawsuit seeking return of the money after the criminal trial, the defenses to a contract claim would be:
And to any equitable quasi-contractual theories would be:
The scary thing is that in some jurisdictions, you could find a lawyer who would file that case for you.
Oops. Fraud should be on both lists. Permit me to amend . . .
And to any equitable quasi-contractual theories would be:
ok, but lets look at in the context of this post. Some dude pays you say 20 grand to kill his wife, you take his money and walk away. Now lets say no police are involved. I think he is going to have a hard time getting his money back without getting into some sort of legal troubles. Now if i can remember correcltly back to my law class, you are not required to pay back any consideration you recieved if in fact it was an illegal contract or a minor. You may be able to recover your funds in a different country. I’ll have to go look this stuff up, but i thought i remembered learning that, but i could be mistaken
Yes, but who do you think he’s next going to put a contract out on?
Yeah. So be sure and charge him * all * his money.
He’s going into court to say what? I hired this guy to commit a murder. He didn’t. Order him to give me my money back. Yeah, at that point it will be difficult to avoid police involvement.
He won’t be able to get his money back based on any equitable doctrines because as a criminal, he has unclean hands. A court of equity leaves a wrongdoer where it finds him.
Since the contract is void because it requires an act that is mallum in se, he will not be able to recover his payment under contract law. That leaves him with the unclean hands problem. So yes, it is unlikely that he would recover anything. If the contract involved a less serious criminal offense, the result might be different. For instance, if he had hired a contractor to build a swimming pool that violated zoning laws, he would have a better case to recover advances to the contractor.
If the hired gunman is smart he might well return the money because keeping it makes him look more like a conspirator to commit murder. And if he wants to beat the conspiracy charge, he has the option of arguing that he merely intended to criminal fraud. “Hey, I was ripping this guy off the whole time. I’m a serious liar. You should believe me now. Really. I never would have murdered his wife.”
Ya gotta love lawyers. Within three and a half hours Gfactor has explained how the hitman recipient is both entitled and not entitled to keep the money.
Suppose we change the scenario.
I agree to kill the guy’s wife and accept 20K cash, which I just shove into the bank.
The next day I go to the cops with my lawyer, and offer to tell my story and assist in gathering evidence against the guy by wearing a wire, all in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
And I wear the wire and get the guy to admit paying me, maybe promising me more money, and discussing the details of the murder. The guy is charged with consiracy and/or attempted murder.
Under thsi scenario, I can’t see any circumstances where I’d have to pony up the money. Well maybe THE money, the actual bills that changed hands might have both our fingerprints, would be valuable evidence. But the bills themselves have disappeared back into the financial system, so only the transaction records would have evidenciary value.
I don’t think it even matters whether the guy is convicted or not, except so far as my personal safety is concerned.
Let’s even suppose that the guy is found not guilty. Could he then goto civil court and sue me for fraud, saying he paid me to kill his wife, I agreed to and then didn’t do it? He’s not putting himself in any criminal jeopardy by admitting this, as he’s already been tried for it. Is it possible that a judge would order me to refund his money?
Probably he still couldn’t make an arguement that specific, as I imagine he would be opening himself up to a huge liability suit by his wife, unless she conveniently dies in the meantime.
I’m beginning to see the outlines of a legal butboiler here, and I’m thinking I’m hitting the edge of the scope of what a GQ should be.
Si what am I getting wrong here>
So, Boyo, you’re saying that if he paid you BEFORE you went to the cops, you get the money. If he paid you AFTER you went to the cops, the money is part of the sting and he gets it back eventually. That seems possible, but kinda sticky.
If you do get to keep the money, you gotta report it for income tax and social security and all. So, you’d barely keep $15,000.
I wonder if you could keep the wire?
I’d think you’d have to give the wire back, unless maybe you asked nicely to keep it as a souvenir. Fifty years later, you could use it to explain to your grandchildren why you moved across the country and changed your name.
Are there any precedents as to what happens with money from a murder contract? If the accused gets to keep it, does he have to wait until he’s out of prison to access it?
It’s surprising that money used as part of a criminal transaction (or as part of a criminal contract) goes back to the accused. I would’ve thought it would be seized. Does it matter where the money comes from, though? Suppose a drug trafficker offers someone $10,000 to carry a package across the Mexican border. The person goes to the police, wears a wire, and the trafficker is arrested. Since the money in this case is the proceeds of crime (part of a drug trafficker’s assets, earned from selling drugs), can’t it be seized? I would think the same thing would apply to murder contracts.
If I haven’t said explicitly before, IANAlawyer and everything I post related to this is based on very badly informed opinion, though I hope a reasonable layman’s logic.
Im’ trying to think what interest the state would have in forcing me to return the money to the guy. I guess it’s possible they could charge me under fraud statutes, so iy would probably behoove me to get as broad a vlanket of immunity as I can manage when I first go to the authoritie.
But I can;t see the state demanding that I withdraw 20K out of my account to use as evidence at the guy’s conspiracy trial. What could they prove with it? And I equally can’t see the guy having any practical legal recourse.
It would also be conceivable I couldn’t strike a deal with the authorities for absolute immunity, and that they would want me to plea to something and accpt a pinishment of a fine and.or community service. They could try and make me pay back the money to the state or even order me to make a donation to charity. Vut without me they have absolutly NO evidence that a crime has taken place, so I wouldn’t take a deal like that.
Actually, supposing neither of us involved the police. I just tool the money and sat. If the guy was insane enough to sue me based on the true facts, that I didn’t carry out a hit I’d been paid for, could he recover from me? (For the moment let’s forget about the ultimate ciminal issues that would arise from his assertions.)
In your case, the money is indeed a “proceed” of the drug trafficker, but I would ask whether it is hos anymore and hence subject to seizure, or now belongs to someone else.
What if the drug dealer bought his girlfriend a house as a gift? Put it in her name and all. Could the state come along later and seize it from her? And how about the cash he used to buy it? What if the state came after the seller to recover the cash? Could the state double dip like that? Wouldn’t seem so, but there is a certain logic to going after both sides of a transaction.
It’s sort of a case where possession actually *is * 9/10ths of the law. 
And I think the real conclusion is that that if you are gonna do a money for hire scam:
I agree. In cases where two parties enter into an illegal contract, the courts will leave the parties in the situation in which they’ve placed themselves, and refuse to recognize or enforce any claims that either might have.
(There’s an exception where one side is significantly more culpable than the other, but it’s fairly narrow, at least in my state.)