This is the second post excerpted from a draft set of jury instructions filed in court on Friday. The 176-page document is what the court proposes to use to orient jurors and explain the laws they are expected to apply to the sprawling case against former Honolulu business owner Michael J. Miske Jr.

I got a little ahead of myself by saying today’s post would look at the jury instructions concerning the charged racketeering conspiracy.

First, though, the draft jury instructions walk through the law regarding conspiracies in general.

It’s not necessarily straight forward.

A group of people can be legally found to be conspiring together even if not all of them know what the others are doing, and they may be involved in separate and distinct activities. And it’s possible to be found guilty of a criminal conspiracy even if the central crime never actually happened. So that if you and others agree to rob a bank, and concrete steps are taken to carry out the crime (procuring weapons, arranging a getaway car, keeping the bank under surveillance, etc.), but then later abandon the idea, the law appears to say that you can be found guilty of conspiring to do it, even though “it” never happends.

Anyway, read on. Here’s a link to the draft instructions that spell out the law of conspiracy. The next post will explain the even more complicated racketeering conspiracy law.

Draft Jury Instructions