## Facts

- Missouri conservation agents created a life-sized “dummy deer” using the hide and skull of a dead doe, stuffing and mounting it so it could stand upright; reflective tape was placed over the eye sockets.
- On September 12, 1952, agents placed the dummy in a field near a roadway in Phelps County during the closed season for deer hunting with firearms.
- Agents observed defendants drive slowly while sweeping fields with spotlights; the car stopped when the dummy was illuminated.
- One defendant fired a shotgun slug at the dummy deer.
- Agents arrested defendants and seized spotlights, a flashlight, the shotgun, and ammunition from the vehicle.
- Defendants asserted they were frog-hunting and believed they were shooting at a wolf, not hunting deer.
- Defendants were convicted of a misdemeanor for willfully and unlawfully hunting, pursuing, and attempting to take a deer with firearms during the closed season, in violation of § 252.040 and conservation regulations.

## Issues

1. Whether shooting at and otherwise acting toward a stuffed dummy deer constitutes “hunting,” “pursuing,” or “attempting to take” a “deer” under § 252.040 and the governing regulations.
2. Whether defendants may be convicted of an attempt when, because no live deer existed, completion of the charged offense was legally impossible.
3. Whether the appellate court needed to reach defendants’ claims involving entrapment and unlawful search and seizure.

## Decision

- The Missouri Court of Appeals reversed the convictions and ordered defendants discharged.
- The court held defendants did not “pursue” or “attempt to take” a deer within the meaning of the statute and regulations because the object of their conduct was a dummy, not live wildlife.
- The court held attempt liability did not lie because it is not criminal to attempt an act that is legally impossible to complete under the statute as written.
- The court declined to decide entrapment and search-and-seizure arguments because reversal was required on statutory and attempt grounds.

## Legal Principles

- Conservation statutes criminalizing the pursuit or taking of “wildlife” require conduct directed at actual wildlife; actions aimed only at an artificial decoy do not satisfy that element.
- “Pursue,” in context, connotes following or chasing a living animal with the aim of overtaking or killing it; a stationary dummy cannot be “pursued” as a deer.
- Legal impossibility is a defense to criminal attempt where, even if the actor intends the prohibited result, the contemplated object or circumstances cannot constitute the offense defined by statute.
- When the charged offense requires a legally defined object (here, a live deer), the absence of that object defeats both the completed offense and an attempt predicated on the same statutory elements.

## Conclusion

Because the statute and regulations prohibited pursuing or taking actual deer and the defendants’ conduct was directed only at a dummy, the State failed to prove an essential element of the offense; moreover, attempt liability was barred by legal impossibility, requiring reversal and discharge.


State v. Guffey, 262 S.W.2d 152 (Mo. Ct. App. 1953)