2017 New Mexico Statutes
Chapter 30 - Criminal Offenses
Article 28 - Initiatory Crimes
Section 30-28-3 - Criminal solicitation; penalty.

30-28-3. Criminal solicitation; penalty.

A. Except as to bona fide acts of persons authorized by law to investigate and detect the commission of offenses by others, a person is guilty of criminal solicitation if, with the intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony, he solicits, commands, requests, induces, employs or otherwise attempts to promote or facilitate another person to engage in conduct constituting a felony within or without the state.

B. In any prosecution for criminal solicitation, it is an affirmative defense that under circumstances manifesting a voluntary and complete renunciation of criminal intent, the defendant:

(1) notified the person solicited; and

(2) gave timely and adequate warning to law enforcement authorities or otherwise made a substantial effort to prevent the criminal conduct solicited.

The burden of raising this issue is on the defendant, but does not shift the burden of proof of the state to prove all of the elements of the crime of solicitation beyond a reasonable doubt.

C. It is not a defense that the person solicited could not be guilty of the offense solicited due to insanity, minority or other lack of criminal responsibility or incapacity. It is not a defense that the person solicited is unable to commit the crime solicited because of lack of capacity, status or other characteristic needed to commit the crime solicited, so long as the person soliciting or the person solicited believes that he or they have such capacity, status or characteristics.

D. A person is not liable for criminal solicitation when his solicitation constitutes conduct of a kind that is necessarily incidental to the commission of the offense solicited. When the solicitation constitutes a felony offense other than criminal solicitation, which is related to but separate from the offense solicited, the defendant is guilty of such related felony offense and not of criminal solicitation. Provided, a defendant may be prosecuted for and convicted of both the criminal solicitation as well as any other crime or crimes committed by the defendant or his accomplices or coconspirators, or the crime or crimes committed by the person solicited.

E. Any person convicted of criminal solicitation shall be punished as follows:

(1) if the highest crime solicited is a capital or first degree felony, the person soliciting such felony is guilty of a second degree felony;

(2) if the highest crime solicited is a second degree felony, the person soliciting such a felony is guilty of a third degree felony; and

(3) if the highest crime solicited is a third degree felony or a fourth degree felony, the person soliciting such felony is guilty of a fourth degree felony.

History: Laws 1979, ch. 265, 1.