Inchoate crimes are significant criminal offenses in the country. Different jurisdictions in the country have varying definitions and tests of inchoate or attempted crimes. For example, a person’s proximity test; which assesses how close a person was to commit a crime, and the last act test; which is concerned with the final action taken before attempting a crime. The Model Penal Code (MPC) is a standardized test of inchoate offense that comprises two primary elements. Foremost is a person’s intent to carry out a specific crime (Doyle, 2015). Secondly is an overt act, where an individual takes further actions to achieve the predetermined criminal objective. MPC tests analysis of botched offenses is critical in determining whether they should be regarded as inchoate crimes or not.
All the elements of the inchoate crime were met in the case of Merlin Jarred Beattie, an Australian man who was sentenced to jail for the attempted robbery of a McDonald’s store in Canberra. According to Byrne (2019), Merlin and another person traveled to a MacDonald’s fast food joint in Canberra with an intention to commit a crime. The evidence of Merlin’s plan to attempt a robbery at the food outlet was his gun possession and balaclava intended to aid in the completion of the crime (Byrne, 2019). Merlin and his colleague tried to rob the store at the payment window by wearing the balaclava to hide their faces and removing the gun to threaten the cashier for money. Although Merlin’s robbery attempt was botched because the cashier closed the payment window, he was taken to court and sentenced for three years for his inchoate crime. Moreover, the court’s decision was not deterred by Merlin’s remorse for his actions.
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From the above analysis, it is evident that the MPC test is applied to all inchoate crimes in Australia. Merlin was found guilty of attended robbery because of his intention to attempt to rob McDonalds’s and his overt actions to go ahead with the theft. As long as the two conditions are met, a person is guilty even if he did not get material benefit from his actions.
References
Byrne, E. (2019). 'Bound to go wrong': Man jailed over bungled McDonald's drive-through armed robbery. Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-05/attempted-robbery-at-canberra-mcdonalds-goes-wrong/10783048
Doyle, C. (2015). Sex Trafficking: Proposals in the 114th Congress to Amend Federal Criminal Law.
