ATTEMPT

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ATTEMPT

ATTEMPT, criminal law. An attempt to commit a crime, is an endeavor to accomplish it, carried beyond mere preparation, but falling short ofexecution of the ultimate design, in any part of it. 2. Between preparations and attempts to commit a crime, the distinctionis in many cases, very indeterminate. A man who buys poison for the purposeof committing a murder, and mixes it in the food intended for his victim,and places it on a table where he may take it, will or will not be guilty ofan attempt to poison, from the simple circumstance of his taking back thepoisoned food before or after the victim has had an opportunity to take it;for if immediately on putting it down, he should take it up, and, awakenedto a just consideration of the enormity of the crime, destroy it, this wouldamount only to preparations and certainly if before he placed it on thetable, or before he mixed the poison with the food, he had repented of hisintention there would have been no attempt to commit a crime; the law givesthis as a locus penitentiae. An attempt to commit a crime is a misdemeanor;and an attempt to commit a misdemeanor, is itself a misdemeanor. 1 Russ. onCr. 44; 2 East, R. 8; 3 Pick. R. 26; 3 Benth. Ev. 69; 6 C. & P. 368.

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