People v. Jaffe
Court of Appeals of New York
78 N.E. 169 (1906)
Believing he was buying cloth stolen from J.W. Goddard & Son, Jaffe (defendant) attempted to purchase 20 yards of the material, but unbeknownst to him the cloth had actually already been recovered and returned to its legitimate owner before being legally offered for sale to him; the prosecution conceded at trial that the goods were not, in fact, stolen property, yet Jaffe was still convicted of attempting to receive stolen property and appealed.
Whether a defendant can be convicted of attempting to commit a crime when the completed transaction he actually attempted would not have constituted any criminal offense at all, because the property involved lacked the legally required characteristic (here, stolen status).