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Where two individuals agree to rob a convenient store subsequently abandon their plan only when they happen to learn from another friend that the proprietor is armed, they have already committed a criminal conspiracy, punishable by a lengthy term of incarceration.
Hypothetical Scenarios in Modern Culture:
Steven Spielberg's recent movie Minority Report explored the notion of criminal prosecution in the present, for future crimes not yet committed at the time of prosecution, based on a short story by Philip K. Dick. The movie is set fifty years in the future, when law enforcement authorities employ psychic readers ("precogs") to identify, prevent, and ultimately prosecute criminal activity even before it happens.
Detective John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, discovers that the "precogs" have implicated him in a future violent murder of a person still unknown to him at the time of their precognition.
Minority Report relates more to psychic precognition and forecasting the future than to prosecution for criminal thought, necessarily, since Anderton never entertained any thought about his future "victim," much less considered murdering him, since he was still unknown to him at the time of the precognition. Nevertheless, in the day and age of modern medical tools such as MRI, CT, and PET scans, and the detailed brain imaging they make possible, it is conceivable that future technologies might indeed be able to read actual thoughts, or even subconscious thoughts, entirely unknown to a person in any conscious manner.
This raises very difficult legal issues, because, unlike the crime...
Under current law, someone could even say to an acquaintance, "I'm thinking about killing my landlord," without fearing criminal prosecution unless he specifies more particularly that he has an actual plan to do so, or takes actual steps toward the murder.
Conclusion:
In principle, the prospect of actually being able to read minds might lead to future laws defining "private conspiracy," along the lines of traditional conspiracy crimes that require an agreement between two or more parties. In a practical sense, it is probably impossible to determine actual thoughts, even from the most precise diagnostic, brain imaging technologies, because it is one matter to identify neurological electrical impulses and cerebral blood flow or temperature, and quite another matter to decipher the images and verbal thoughts they may represent within the human mind.
Ultimately, penal law does not address criminal culpability of mere thoughts, primarily, because there is no way ever to know exactly what another person is thinking about, or planning to do in the future, until he divulges his thoughts and plans. That is more a matter addressed by spiritual beliefs, such as Christianity, which defines certain types of thoughts as moral sins, at least in the eyes of God.
References
Indianapolis Star (November 9, 2004) Reagan Shooter Hinckley Seeks More Freedom. Accessed November 20, 2004, at http://www.indystar.com/articles/8/.html
Johnson, Phillip, E. (1995) Criminal Law: Cases, Materials, and Text (5th ed.)
Minneapolis: West Publishing Co.
Taylor, Richard. (1982) Freedom, Anarchy and the Law
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