Przestępstwo zmowy (conspiracy) w amerykańskim prawie karnym a przestępstwo udziału w zorganizowanej grupie przestępczej lub związku przestępczym

Abstract

The article is based on the opinion of an expert in American criminal law drawn up in the course of proceedings before a Polish district court. In these proceedings, one of the defendants was charged, among other things, with participation in an organized criminal group whose purpose was to export from Poland without the required regulatory authorization and to illegally trade after importing into the United States of America a psychotropic substance in significant quantities in the form of ecstasy tablets containing the substance MDMA, i.e. an act under Article 258 § 1 of the Criminal Code. At the same time, in the course of the proceedings, information was obtained that the defendant had already been convicted in the territory of the United States of America for a crime described as “conspiracy to distribute and possession of MDMA for the purpose of distribution”, i.e. an act criminalized by Article 21 the United States Code § 846. In connection with the above, it became necessary in the proceedings to determine whether there was an identity in subject matter between the crime charged against the defendant in the proceedings before the Polish court and the crime for which he had been convicted in the territory of the United States. The purpose of the article is to analyze whether the crime of participation in an organized criminal group described in Polish law in Article 258 § 1 of the Criminal Code can be understood as the crime of conspiracy to commit a crime criminalized in American federal law under 21 U.S.C. § 846.