Does a conspiracy end when the government becomes involved?

        On November 18, 1997 at 1 a.m. the Nevada police stopped a pickup truck.  In the truck were 369 pounds of marijuana and 14.8 pound of cocaine.  The drivers claimed that they were told to drive the truck to a mall in Idaho.  The government set up a sting operation and got the truck to the designated location.  The arrested drivers of the truck called the pager number to notify the people picking up the drugs at the mall where the truck was.  3 hours later Francisco Jimenez Recio and Adrain Lopez-Meza drove into the parking lot and took the truck.  They took different back roads when the police stopped them.  They claimed falsely to be each given $250 to drive the truck to Recio’s house where a man would come and pick the truck up.  Recio happened to be carrying a pager, a phone card, and a non-owner driver’s insurance.  The police also found 2 pagers and 2 phone cards on Lopez-Meza.  He claimed that he was going to see his girlfriend whose name and address he could not recall.  

        On January 16, 1998 the Federal Grand Jury charged Recio and Lopez-Meza with “conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and marijuana and with possession of cocaine and marijuana with intent to distribute [it]”.  Francisco Jimenez Recio and Adrain Lopez-Meza filed a “motion for judgment of acquittal” and they argued that their convictions were invalid under similar circumstances in the case U.S. v. Cruz.  In this case the 9th circuit court said that the conspiracy ended when the drugs were seized by the government.  This court denied the motion for judgment of acquittal but did give them a new trial at which they were also found guilty.  

        The 9th circuit court said that the evidence presented at the second trial was not sufficient to prove conspiracy.  The 9th circuit court relied on their decision in U.S. v. Cruz, just the year before, saying that there was no direct evidence showing that the respondents were involved before the drugs were seized.  Quoting the majority opinion the respondents “were simply drivers hired at last minute”.  They also said that there was no evidence that Francisco Jimenez Recio and Adrain Lopez-Meza were involved in prior drug shipments.  

        However, Judge Gould had a dissenting opinion stating that there was more than sufficient evidence in the trial linking them to the conspiracy.  Judge O’Scannlain also dissented that “in holding that a conspiracy endures only as long as its ultimate goal remains objectively achievable.”  O’Scannlain also noted that “impossibility is not a defense to a conspiracy charge”.  Cruz conflicts with the 1st circuit court decision Belardo-Quiñones.

        Thus, we believe that a conspiracy ends when its ultimate goal is frustrated or abandoned and not necessarily when the government intervenes. Also, we feel that it would have been unlikely that the 9th circuit court would go against its own decision in Cruz. Moreover the case is simply questioning the constitutionality of the 9th circuit court’s decision is constitutional under the broad and lightly defined law of conspiracy.