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Alternate uses: See Conspiracy
(disambiguation)
Conspiracy is the act of working in secret to obtain some goal, usually understood with negative
connotations. In United States v. Shabani
(1994) the US 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..."
This ruling indicates that conspiracy, without any further action, can be criminal. Note
that a "conspiracy", as a legal term in the US, does not always require more than one person. There are, in many nations, explicit crimes of
conspiracy to commit murder et cetera.
In California, a punishable conspiracy is an agreement between at least two people to commit a crime, while in addition at
least one of them does some act to commit the crime. Each person is punishable in the same manner and to the same extent as is
provided for the punishment of the crime itself. [1]
- See also: conspiracy theory
Etymology
It is generally accepted that conspire comes from the Latin roots
con, with, and spirare, to breathe—so to conspire literally means 'to breathe together'.
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