Ng: Aggravated Felony Even Though Hired Undercover Police Officer

Ng v. Gonzales
http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/044672p.pdf
Filed 02/07/06, No. 04-4672
February 7, 2006
Precedential

Ng v. Gonzales (3d Cir. Feb. 7, 2006) (precedential):

You can commit a crime by hiring someone you think is a hitman but actually is an undercover police officer. Here, the immigrant wanted to hire a hitman to kill someone, but the police intervened and arranged a sting operation -- the immigrant wound up thinking he hired a hitman, but he actually wound up asked an undercover detective posing as a hitman.

Because crimes are analyzed under the categorical approach (conduct covered by the statute as written, not the details of a particular case), use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of a murder-for-hire is an aggravated felony. It's irrelevant that in fact no murder was going to happen because the person he hired was actually an undercover detective pretending to be a hitman.