Attempt to commit a crime; no defense · as in force on May 31, 2026
§ 110.10 Attempt to commit a crime; no defense.
If the conduct in which a person engages otherwise constitutes an attempt to commit a crime pursuant to section 110.00, it is no defense to a prosecution for such attempt that the crime charged to have been attempted was, under the attendant circumstances, factually or legally impossible of commission, if such crime could have been committed had the attendant circumstances been as such person believed them to be.
If conduct otherwise amounts to an attempt under § 110.00, it is no defense that completing the crime was factually or legally impossible, so long as it could have been completed under the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be. ★
Marked in the text: penalties, time limits, sums of money. Editorial emphasis added by this edition; it does not appear in the statute as enacted.
This provision appears in Volume 4 — The Court Clerk: Penal Law; Volume 1 — The Court Officer in Plain English; Volume 3 — The Court Officer: Penal Law; Volume 3 — Your Career: Penal Law in Plain English.