Introduction
Legal impossibility defense and factual impossibility defense are applied to defendants who are accused of unsuccessful attempts to break the law. Legal impossibility defense should be used when a person’s actions do not constitute an illegal act.
Discussion
According to some sources, it involves occasions when a defendant is convinced that their actions were illegal, but in fact, they were lawful (Robinson et al., 2022). In this case, the example of legal impossibility will be the case when someone orders medicine from other countries, being sure they are prohibited, but it turns out not to be true. Since it is not illegal to order these goods, a person would not be convicted, even if the initial intent was to break the law.
Factual impossibility is different as it implies the defendant tried to do something that is prohibited by law. Factual impossibility is used when the circumstances make the defendants unable to break the law, even if they intend to commit an offense (Hall, 2022). For example, if a person sets the house on fire but the fire does not start because of the sudden rain, that would be the case of factual impossibility. In this example, a person wished to break the law and had the means to enforce this wish. This person took action to offend, and the crime was not committed only due to external circumstances.
Conclusion
In other words, the main distinction is that defendants’ actions are not considered to be illegal in the case of legal impossibility. There is a difference in consequences for the defendant as well. Legal impossibility implies the absence of punishment since it is impossible to convict a person for trying to do something that does not break the law. In the case of factual impossibility defendant could be convicted (Robison et al., 2020). These features make legal and factual impossibility defenses differ from each other.
Reference
Hall, E.D. (2022). Criminal law and procedure. Cengage Learning.
Robinson, P.H., Baughman. S.B., & Cahill, M.T. (2020). Criminal law. Case studies and Controversies. Aspen Publishing.