## Facts

- After a fight at a pool hall and nearby parking lot in Amarillo, Roy Castillo and a friend left to obtain firearms, including a pistol-grip shotgun and a 9mm pistol.
- They returned to the scene with the weapons, exited their vehicle, and fired at a black car containing multiple people, including Ambrose Bustos (a participant in the earlier fight) and Julian Moreno.
- Moreno was struck in the head by a bullet and died.
- Castillo later gave a confession admitting he fired his pistol at the car.
- After learning someone had died, Castillo discarded the shotgun, the pistol, and an ammunition clip in a lake; law enforcement later recovered the weapons.
- The State prosecuted Castillo for Moreno’s murder, including on a transferred-intent theory that he intended to kill Bustos but instead killed Moreno.

## Issues

1. Whether the jury charge improperly instructed on transferred intent for murder when the indictment did not expressly allege transferred intent and the instruction allegedly failed to specify additional mental-state and weapon details.
2. Whether omitting a transferred-intent instruction from the manslaughter (lesser-included) charge constituted an improper comment on the weight of the evidence.
3. Whether the evidence was legally and factually sufficient to support the murder conviction, including the required mental state.
4. Whether admitting the autopsy report was reversible error because it was hearsay.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the murder conviction.
- The transferred-intent instruction was permissible even though transferred intent was not expressly pleaded, and the charge as a whole required the proper culpable mental state.
- The absence of a transferred-intent instruction in the manslaughter portion of the charge was not an improper judicial comment on the evidence.
- The evidence was legally and factually sufficient to prove murder, including under transferred intent.
- The autopsy report was admissible under hearsay exceptions applicable to medical examiner records, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting it.

## Legal Principles

- Under Texas Penal Code § 6.04, transferred intent functions as a doctrine of criminal responsibility; it need not be expressly alleged in the indictment to support a jury instruction when the indictment otherwise charges murder.
- Jury-charge error is assessed by reading the charge as a whole; an instruction is adequate if it correctly states the law and does not reduce the State’s burden to prove the required mental state beyond a reasonable doubt.
- A trial court does not necessarily err by declining to extend transferred-intent language to manslaughter, which is predicated on recklessness rather than intentional or knowing conduct.
- Autopsy reports prepared by medical examiners in the regular course of official duties may be admitted under recognized hearsay exceptions (e.g., public-records or business-records theories) when properly authenticated.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Castillo’s murder conviction, holding that the transferred-intent instruction was legally proper despite the indictment’s silence on the doctrine, the charge did not improperly comment on the evidence by omitting transferred intent from manslaughter, the proof supported the verdict under legal and factual sufficiency standards, and the autopsy report was properly admitted under hearsay exceptions.


Castillo v. State, 71 S.W.3d 812 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2002, pet. ref’d)