Hypothetical Legal Question

[Headtime]

Imagine there was a deeply hated mayor of a town of 50,000 people. All the townsfolk donated �1 each to hire a hitman to assasinate him, and all signed a statement stating that they were all equally culpable for his murder. Would the police attempt to presecute and imprison 50,000 people for being an accessory to murder, or would each citizen's involvement be considered too small to warrant prosecution?

[incitatus]

there is no argument of numbers for conspiracy to murder. and no contract made between people can assign blame for murder as this is contrary to statute. all of them would have to be prosecuted. do you have someone in mind?

[mindbullets]

headtime ,i know alpay was a bit out of order on saturday but i think such action by the villa fans would be a bit extreme!!

[Headtime]

Cheers Incitatus and Mindbullets. Although only a hypothetical question, would the authorities actually attempt to stand 50,000 people on trial? Surely that would be a practically impossible? And if sentenced to custody, how would the authorities then house nearly double the present prison population?

I have no one in particular in mind, although I could think of a few.

I also quite possibly have too much time on my hands.

[darth vader]

Didn't Railtrack try to use this argument (unsuccessfully) to stop them going to court over the Hatfield disaster?