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Aren't you ignoring this part: "If you can draw two or more reasonable conclusions from the circumstantial evidence, and one of those reasonable conclusions points to innocence and another to guilt, you must accept the one that points to innocence"?
And that would depend on the framing the prosecution uses and the quality of the jury. If you select properly, choosing people who aren’t able to tell the difference between vague discontent and an actual plan. It’s not at all clear that the usual retirees and unemployed who usually populate jury pools are going to make the fine distinctions that would allow that standard to actually hold. Especially given that the PF imagery and public statements would be off putting to most jurors. If the prosecutor is smart, when he’s talking about the flag poles, he’s going to make sure that the fascist symbols are clearly visible. Those kinds of things can be provocative in the minds of jurors.
To go to the bank example, if you and I visit a bank, and then I text you about money problems, and how a sudden windfall of money would solve my problems, and you say something like yeah that would be nice, in the hands of a good prosecutor, that’s motive right there. Now either one of us caught with common items that could have some use in a bank robbery are potentially in actual conspiracy. After all, why would an innocent person have these items in their trunk.
Motive is not an element of conspiracy. An agreement to commit a crime is.
I note that now you have added facts to your original hypothetical. What kinds of items? Guns and ski masks?
Look, are innocent people sometimes convicted of crimes due to an unfortunate accumulation of apparently incriminating circumstantial evidence? Yes. If that is all you mean to be arguing, I agree. But you seem to be saying that that is particularly common re conspiracy charges, and that people are convicted of conspiracy based on ridiculously ephemeral evidence. Where is your evidence for that?
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