## Facts

- Thomas Davis and Alberdina Lourie agreed to have Alberdina’s husband, Edmon Lourie, killed so they could obtain life-insurance proceeds and be together.
- Davis used an intermediary to locate a person to commit the killing; the intermediary informed police.
- A police officer posed as the hired killer and met with Davis multiple times to discuss the plan.
- Davis provided photographs of the intended victim and paid the officer $600 as part of the agreed fee.
- The plan contemplated that the hired killer would go to the Lourie home, kill Edmon, and make the death appear to be a robbery.
- On the planned night, the officer went to the house but never intended to kill anyone and performed no act toward carrying out the homicide; Davis was later arrested.
- Davis was convicted at trial of attempted first-degree murder based on the murder-for-hire scheme and appealed, challenging the sufficiency of proof of an “attempt.”

## Issues

1. Whether organizing and financing a murder-for-hire plan and soliciting a purported killer constitutes an “attempt” to commit murder, or only preparation/solicitation.
2. Whether attempt liability can rest on a supposed principal’s conduct when the purported killer is an undercover officer who never intends to commit the crime and performs no overt act toward killing.

## Decision

- The Missouri Supreme Court reversed Davis’s conviction for attempted murder.
- The court held the evidence proved only preparation and solicitation, not an overt act that directly tended toward the commission of murder.
- Because the undercover officer never intended to kill and did not undertake an act toward killing, there was no attempted killing by the supposed principal that could support attempt liability.

## Legal Principles

- Criminal attempt requires an overt act that goes beyond preparation and directly tends toward completion of the offense; intent and preparatory arrangements alone are insufficient.
- Solicitation, even coupled with partial payment and providing information about the intended victim, is not itself an attempt absent further conduct that proximately advances the crime.
- Where the person solicited to commit the substantive offense is an undercover officer who never intends to act and performs no act toward the crime’s commission, the solicitation and planning do not satisfy the act requirement for attempt under the court’s formulation.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that detailed planning, payment, and solicitation of a purported hit man—without any overt act that directly moved the homicide toward completion—amounted to mere preparation, requiring reversal of the attempted-murder conviction.


State v. Davis, 6 S.W.2d 609 (Mo. 1928)