inchoate offense

An inchoate offense, preliminary crime, inchoate crime or incomplete crime is a crime of preparing for or seeking to commit another crime. The most common example of an inchoate offense is "attempt". "Inchoate offense" has been defined as the following: "Conduct deemed criminal without actual harm being done, provided that the harm that would have occurred is one the law tries to prevent." Intent Every inchoate crime or offense must have the mens rea of intent or of recklessness, typically intent. Absent a specific law, an inchoate offense requires that the defendant have the specific intent to commit the underlying crime. For example, for a defendant to be guilty of the inchoate crime of solicitation of murder, he or she must have intended for a person to die. Attempt, conspiracy, and solicitation all require mens rea.