Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces

No. 22-0122/AF. U.S. v. Katelyn L. Day. CCA 39962. On consideration of the petition for grant of review of the decision of the United States Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals, it is ordered that said petition is granted on the following issue:
 
WHETHER ATTEMPTED CONSPIRACY, "A CREATURE UNKNOWN TO FEDERAL LAW," IS A VIABLE OFFENSE UNDER THE UCMJ.

The AFCCA unpublished opinion is here.

The Appellant pled guilty to attempted possession of fentanyl, attempted conspiracy to commit premeditated murder, two solicitations to commit murder, an addtional attempted conspiracy to commit murder, for which she was sentenced to ten years, RiR, and a DD. The issues before AFCCA were,

• The plea of guilty to two specifications of attempted conspiracy is improvident as the specifications failed to state an offense, or, in the alternative, whether the military judge abused his discretion in accepting Appellant’s plea to attempted conspiracy because Appellant did not perform a substantial step towards the commission of the offense.
• The MJ’s ambiguous language during Appellant’s providence inquiry rendered Appellant’s plea to solicitation to commit murder improvident.
• The plea to attempted murder was improvident because the overt act was not a substantial step towards commission of the offense, and even if the overt act was sufficient, Appellant did not have the requisite mens rea at the time she performed the overt act.
• Sentence appropriateness.

Generally, the crimes originated from the Appellant's unhappiness with her husband and money troubles--which an insurance policy payment may have reconciled. Apparently, a drug overdose was to be the means.

Also in November 2019, Appellant talked to a co-worker, JJ, about her issues with TD. According to the stipulation of fact, Appellant told JJ something to the effect of, “I need my husband to go away.” Unsure of Appellant’s context, JJ responded, “Huh?” Appellant then essentially stated, “I will give you $50,000[.00], half of the insurance money, to kill him.” JJ responded, “I’m not going to kill your husband. Get someone else to do that.” Appellant told JJ she had contacted previous boyfriends to ask them to kill TD, but they told her they would not do it. JJ told Appellant, “There is no perfect crime. Don’t you watch reality TV crime shows? You are going to get caught[.]” 
. . . 
Also on 30 November 2019, Appellant made contact with TL, an individual she knew previously, and asked for his assistance in her plan to murder TD. 6 When TL asked for clarification, Appellant responded, “My most recent thought was putting a bunch of muscle relaxers and pain pills in a drink of his.

etc., etc., etc.