In New York, what happens to an inchoate charge once the underlying crime is actually completed depends on which inchoate offense you are talking about. Criminal attempt merges into the finished crime and disappears. Conspiracy, solicitation, and criminal facilitation do not. They survive as separate convictions that stack on top of the completed offense, which means more counts on the indictment and, often, more prison time.
That split is the whole answer, and everything below works through what it means in practice.
Attempt Disappears Into the Finished Crime
Attempt is the one inchoate offense that collapses when the target crime is carried out. A person commits an attempt by intending to commit a crime and taking action that comes dangerously close to finishing it.1New York State Unified Court System. New York Penal Law 110 – Attempt to Commit a Crime If the crime is actually completed, the attempt is swallowed up. The prosecutor charges the completed offense, not both. A jury never sees an attempt count when the evidence shows the crime went through.
The reasoning is simple. Attempt is a lesser included offense of the completed crime, so every element of the attempt is already inside the finished offense. Charging both would punish the same conduct twice. Someone who sets out to burglarize a home and succeeds faces a burglary charge, not burglary plus attempted burglary. Once completion is proven, attempt has no independent reason to exist.
The attempt reduction schedule, which drops a completed attempt roughly one felony class below the target, only matters when the crime was not finished. If completion is on the table, the attempt is not.
Conspiracy Survives the Completed Crime
Conspiracy is treated as a separate evil from the crime it was aimed at. When two or more people agree to commit a crime and at least one takes a concrete step to advance the plan, the conspiracy is complete as its own offense.2New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 105.05 – Conspiracy in the Fifth Degree If the group then carries the plan out, the conspiracy charge does not go away. A defendant can be convicted of both conspiring to commit robbery and the robbery itself.
New York requires proof of an overt act for every conspiracy charge, and that act does not have to be criminal on its own. Buying a ski mask or renting a getaway car qualifies if done to further the plan. Completion of the target crime becomes the ultimate overt act, but the conspiracy remains independently punishable because the harm the law targets is the agreement itself. Organized planning is treated as a danger distinct from whatever specific crime results.
Conspiracy charges scale with the seriousness of the target offense. At the low end, conspiring to commit any felony is a Class A misdemeanor.2New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 105.05 – Conspiracy in the Fifth Degree At the high end, an adult who conspires with someone under sixteen to commit a Class A felony faces a Class A-I felony conspiracy charge.3New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 105.17 – Conspiracy in the First Degree Because the conspiracy does not merge, a defendant’s total exposure for a completed crime can effectively double.
Solicitation Survives the Completed Crime
Criminal solicitation is complete the moment the request is made. When a person asks, commands, or pressures someone else to commit a crime, the solicitation is finished whether or not the other person agrees or acts.4New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 100.00 – Criminal Solicitation in the Fifth Degree Because the criminal act is the communication, solicitation does not merge into the target crime if that crime later happens. A defendant who asks someone to commit arson and whose recruit then burns down the building can be convicted of both the solicitation and the arson.
The severity of the solicitation charge depends on what was requested and the ages involved. Fifth-degree solicitation, covering any crime, is a violation.4New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 100.00 – Criminal Solicitation in the Fifth Degree Fourth-degree, for felony requests, is a Class A misdemeanor.5New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 100-05 – Criminal Solicitation in the Fourth Degree First-degree solicitation, where an adult solicits someone under sixteen to commit a Class A felony, is a Class C felony.6New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 100.13 – Criminal Solicitation in the First Degree The practical effect is multiple convictions from a single course of conduct, because the law treats recruiting someone into criminal activity as a standalone harm.
Facilitation Only Exists When the Crime Is Completed
Facilitation sits in an unusual position. A person commits criminal facilitation by providing someone else with the means or opportunity to commit a felony while believing it probable that they are helping that person carry out the crime.7New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 115.00 – Criminal Facilitation in the Fourth Degree Unlike the other inchoate crimes, facilitation requires the underlying felony to actually be committed. Someone who lends a car thinking it will be used in a robbery cannot be charged with facilitation unless the robbery happens.
So for facilitation, completion of the target crime is not a question of merger. It is a precondition. If the felony occurs, the facilitation charge exists alongside it as a separate conviction. Fourth-degree facilitation is a Class A misdemeanor.7New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 115.00 – Criminal Facilitation in the Fourth Degree It rises to a Class B felony when an adult facilitates a Class A felony by someone under sixteen.8New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 115.08 – Criminal Facilitation in the First Degree The charge reaches people on the periphery who did not plan the crime or agree to it but made it easier to pull off.
What Stacked Charges Do to a Sentence
Non-merging inchoate charges do not just add counts. They can extend the sentence. New York law requires concurrent sentences when two offenses arise from a single act, or when one act is both an offense and a material element of the other.9New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 70.25 – Concurrent and Consecutive Terms of Imprisonment For conspiracy, that test usually favors the prosecution: the agreement is a separate act from the commission of the target crime, so consecutive sentences are available. The same logic applies to solicitation, since the request happened at a different moment than the crime. A defendant can therefore serve time on the inchoate count and then more time on the completed offense.
Pleading Down to the Inchoate Charge
New York’s Criminal Procedure Law gives defendants an important option on the plea side. For guilty-plea purposes, solicitation, conspiracy, and facilitation are each treated as lesser included offenses of the completed crime when the defendant’s involvement took that form. A defendant whose role in a charged felony consisted of soliciting it can plead to criminal solicitation in the appropriate degree instead of the completed offense. The same works for conspiracy and facilitation.10New York State Senate. New York Criminal Procedure Law 220.20 – Plea; Plea of Guilty to Lesser Offense
This is a plea mechanism only. At trial, the inchoate offenses remain independent charges and can produce separate convictions alongside the completed crime. In negotiations, though, a defendant facing both a conspiracy count and the completed felony may be able to resolve the case by pleading to the conspiracy alone and avoiding the conviction for the finished offense. Defense lawyers use this route often to cut their clients’ exposure.
Renunciation After the Crime Is Done
New York recognizes an affirmative defense of renunciation for inchoate crimes, but completion of the target crime takes most of it off the table. For solicitation and conspiracy, renunciation applies only when the crime was never actually committed; the defendant has to show they prevented it after voluntarily giving up their criminal purpose. For attempt, renunciation becomes moot once the crime is finished, because the attempt merges into the completed offense anyway. For facilitation, the defense requires a substantial effort to prevent the felony before it happened.11New York State Senate. New York Penal Law 40.10 – Renunciation
Every version requires that the abandonment be voluntary and complete. Backing out because of fear of getting caught does not qualify, and neither does postponing the crime or switching victims. If the crime happened, there is nothing left to renounce. The defense matters almost entirely in cases where the inchoate charge stands alone because the target crime never occurred.
The Bottom Line for a Completed Crime
When the underlying crime is finished, attempt is gone and the other three inchoate charges are not. A defendant can be convicted of the completed offense plus any conspiracy, solicitation, or facilitation count the facts support, and those additional counts can run consecutively. The plea statute offers a potential off-ramp during negotiations, but at trial the stacking is the default. For anyone trying to size up exposure in a New York case, the first question is which inchoate charge is in play, because that determines whether completion of the target crime shrinks the case or multiplies it.