[3] Another case involving the defense of factual impossibility is Commonwealth v. Johnson,[5] in which a psychic healer was charged and convicted of fraud, despite the fact that a fictitious name was used to catch him.
The traditional approach to understanding the legal impossibility defense is that the mistake (about the content of the law of Country 1) insulates the actor from a conviction for the crime of attempted smuggling.
The legal impossibility may be thought of as reflecting that the actor had not satisfied the actus reus of the crime (because they had not actually brought a banned substance into the country).
In State v. Guffey (1953), the defendant shot a stuffed deer, thinking it was alive, and was convicted for attempt to kill a protected animal out of season.
In a highly debated reversal, an appellate judge threw out the conviction on the basis of legal impossibility, concluding that it is not a crime to shoot a stuffed deer out of season.