I bet if it was a Chucky doll or even Talking Tina, they wouldn’t even charge you anything at all. If they did, the chance for a jury nullification is pretty good I would imagine.
I used to blow up GI Joe dolls with fireworks and things when I was younger. I shudder to think what you would be charged with these days for taking out that many military personell with explosves.
Actually… if you don’t take anything, what makes it a robbery? Attempted robbery I would see, threatening people, assault, sure. But robbery is defined in terms of taking something that didn’t belong to you.
If what you were meaning to do was kill a baby, then I think you should get charged for it. Doesn’t matter whether you failed because the baby wasn’t where you thought it was, because someone was able to fend off your attack, because you hurt the baby but not badly enough to kill it, etcetera.
Of course… if there was only a doll there, then the burden of proof should be interpreted more stiffly… the prosecution has to prove beyond reasonable doubt that you thought there was a real baby there. But it doesn’t matter what the physical object of your attack was, in an ‘attempt to…’ charge, as much as the psychological object.
(I am not a lawyer, that is not a legal opinion, just a personal reaction.)
If they can prove their contentions to the satisfaction of a judge to arraign you, and a jury to convict you… then they’re out of luck. I think the chances of that are pretty slim though.
That reminds me, though, of the legal arguments of mistaken murder, where the traditional example goes the other way… somebody sees a figure standing still in a cornfield, presumes that it’s the scarecrow and does a little target practice - but the figure was a living human being. Is the shooter guilty of murder?
Actually, that is kinda curious. Because the island just north of Nova Scotia—Newfoundland—is overrun with the damned things. From 300,000 to 500,000 of the damn things by several official estimates. The locals there, have told me that it’s not a matter of if you hit one with your car, but when. There is, however, two species of moose on Newfoundland - one of which is way more populous than the other. Mebbe the same thing applies on Nova Scotia.
It appears that Nova Scotia, despite listing the moose as endangered in 2003 still has a lottery in which one has a chance to obtain a moose hunting permit. It seems that the NS gov’t has issued 155 of these permits in each of the several recent years. I can’t find anything that has anything to say about the different moose species, though. The permit allows the holder to harvest a moose of either sex.
http://www.gov.ns.ca/natr/draws/moosedraw/mmzones.asp
http://www.gov.ns.ca/natr/draws/moosedraw/harvest.asp
What the article doesn’t say is that he was shooting in self-defense.
Mind y0u, r0b0tic m00se bytes kan be preti nasti.
Just across the Gulf, in Maine, moose are so unendangered that there’s actually a season for them. It’s limited, with permits available only by lottery, and a 1 per season limit, but it exists. More often, people hit them with their vehicles and 1 or 2 a year are killed. If you hit a deer, you’ll hit it in the body and it will fall forward. If you hit a moose, your hood will go under its body and scoop it right into your windshield. I know people who’ve had that happen to them and survived, but it was close.
On the other hand, if you do hit a moose with a vehicle, you can keep the meat, and I’m told it’s pretty good. There are rumors of people going hunting on dark nights with pickups with moose racks welded on the front, just in case they “accidentally” hit one.
It’s also common to see plywood cutouts, shaped like moose in profile, on Maine house lawns, just for the purpose of attracting bullet holes, pissing off legal hunters, and occasionally catching illegal ones. Robots, though? That’s a new one - and I like it.
There’s a Dick Cheney joke in there somewhere.
That would be conspiracy to commit murder. I believe for attempted murder you actually have to make an attempt on someone’s life. If there is no one there, no attempt can be made.
I figure that would end up involuntary manslaughter, if the shooter can explain the conditions clearly enough.
Doesn’t a conspiracy require more than one person to be involved with the crime?
I don’t really why you’re having trouble with this, though. The guy attempted to kill an endangered species. He didn’t know it was a robot moose. He thought it was a real moose, and he tried to kill it. Trying to kill a real moose is against the law. This guy was attempting to break the law. That he could not possibly have achieved his goal in that situation is irrelevent: his intent was to break the law, and that’s what he’s being charged with.
There’s only one species of moose (known in Europe as “elk”) globally, Alces alces. There are 4 (maybe 3) subspecies in North America, plus one or more in Europe, but all moose in eastern North America belong to Alces alces americana.
Newfoundland Moose, however, are not native but were introduced there in the early 20th Century. I suppose it’s possible 2 subspecies were introduced.
Objection! Miller is assuming facts not in evidence.
The defendant saw the Bot Winkle from the road. He steadied his gun on the roof of his vehicle and shot. We do not dispute these facts.
However, we will prove that the defendant was in fact fully aware of the technological nature of his target. He had no intent to shoot a member of an endangered species. He did not shoot a member of an endangered species. Therefore, no crime was committed and you must let my client go free.
O Canada, our home and native land
Hatred of robot moose in all your sons command.
… using violence or force or the threat of violence or force.
… using violence or force or the threat of violence or force against a human being. (You can’t rob an empty building.)
No particular argument here. I didn’t say that I’d given the entire definition - just one important part of the def. 
So you say. Prove he thought it was a real moose. Can you? I say no…unless the guy said “I thought it was a real moose, there’s no proof…did you record his thoughts?”
Agreed. Thing is, he didn’t try to kill a real moose. He tried to kill a fake moose. Whether he thought it was real or not is irrelevant. The point is, he attempted to kill a robot.
Yes, and he failed to break said law. That’s like saying a cop saying “Well, I saw that you were attempting to drive your car at 100 mph in a 65 zone. Unfortunately, your car has a top speed of 60 mph. But, because you tried to break the law, we’ll punish you as if you really had.”
Attempting to break a law isn’t against the law. Actually breaking the law is against the law. I’m sorry, without a real moose there, I don’t see how anyone can say he tried to kill a real moose. There wasn’t a moose to shoot! All he’s guilty of is firing a weapon from a vehicle, destruction of property, and being an idiot. He is NOT guilty of trying to kill a moose. If I think a ball is a human head, that doesn’t mean punching the ball is assault, it means I’m an idiot, nothing more.
I guess my whole point is, you can’t prosecute people because the person doing something things they are commiting a crime they really aren’t.
You can’t charge a man for statutory rape if has consensual sex with an 18 year old, just because he thought she was 16. The fact that the girl is 18 means that no crime was committed. Even if the guy is a sicko who thought he was having intercourse with an underage girl doesn’t mean he committed the crime.
Likewise, this guy shot a robot. Just because he thought it was a real moose (so you say), doesn’t make it a real moose. The facts are, he shot a robot, and therefore he did not commit the crime of trying to kill an endangered species. There was no endangered species near him to kill!
Another example that may make things clearer…and it goes with hunting.
Let’s say there’s a typical duck, and an endangered duck with a distincitve red bill. A man is duck hunting, and shoots at a duck who is swimming such that his head is mixed with red leaves. The man thinks he’s just bagged a rare, endangered Red Billed duck. In reality, it was a mallard with a leaf on its nose. Is the man guilty of killing an endangered species? Is he guilty of attempted killing of an endangered species? Or is he simply a guy who shot a mallard during duck season. If you honestly believe the guy should be charged for a crime in this instance, I seriously question your critical thinking skills.
How about if they make a law against shooting robotic animal simulators that is even more severe than shooting an endangered species? That should solve the issue.
Well, that would be what we have trials for. He’s welcome to claim that he knew it was a robot moose. The prosecution then asks such questions as, “How did you know it was a robot moose?” and “Why would you try to shoot a robot moose?” If he doesn’t have convincing answers to those questions, the jury is likely to decide that he’s lying.
No, he tried to kill a real moose. That’s the course of action going through his head when he pulled the trigger. That his target was not an actual, honest-to-God moose doesn’t matter. He’s being charged for his intent: for what he was attempting to do.
Cite?
Doesn’t matter. He thought there was a real moose there, and acted on that assumption.
Those are not mutually exclusive conclusions. Let’s say you decide to kill me. You go to my house, and see the silhouette of my head behind my curtains. You fire a gun at my head, but it turns out it wasn’t my head, it was a basketball on a table. You’re still going to be charged with attempted murder, because your intent was to kill me, even if your actions could not possibly have resulted in that outcome.
Or, here’s another example. You go up to a drug dealer and try to buy an eigth of pot. But it turns out that the dealer is an undercover cop, and the stuff in the baggie is oregano. You’re still busted, because you thought you were buying weed, and that’s a crime, even if what you were buying was not really weed.
And there’s the example that I was looking for to prove you wrong! You log into a chat room, and talk to someone you think is a twelve year old girl. You convince her to meet you at a motel to have sex. You show up at the motel, and are promptly arrested by the portly forty-year old police detective you’d been chatting with online. No actual twelve year old was involved, but your ass is still going to do hard time.
Yup, that would work, Shagnasty.
Miller -
If I go to your house, and you are not home, and I shoot a basketball, no jury on earth is going to convict you of attempted murder.
If you attempt to buy drugs from an undercover cop, you will go to jail because there are laws on soliciting the sale of drugs. They CAN’T charge you for possession.
Soliciting underage kids on a message board is against the law. The act of solicitation is against the law…therefore, you soliciting an ‘underage’ kid is the violation. Having consensual sex with someone who is 18 years old, even if you think she’s younger, isn’t against the law.
As to the ‘attempting to break the law’ cite? If ‘attempting to break the law’ was against the law, you wouldn’t be attempting it, you’d be breaking it. If I think I’m swiping candy from a store, but in reality, I just took a free sample, I may have thought I was breaking the law, but I wasn’t… If it really was against the law to take the sample, I’d have broken a law.
You can’t be convicted of trying to break a law…because it’s not a violation of law. I don’t mean to say that there aren’t certain things you’re not allowed to attempt. You can’t attempt to buy drugs. But the attempt to buy drugs IS against the law.