## Facts

- Melvin Dlugash was indicted in Kings County, New York, for the murder of Michael Geller after a December 1973 shooting.
- According to Dlugash’s statement to police introduced at trial, Joseph Bush shot Geller three times in the chest after an argument.
- Minutes later, Dlugash fired five shots into Geller’s face at close range.
- Dlugash told police he believed Geller was already dead and claimed he shot because he feared Bush would kill him if he did not comply.
- Medical experts agreed either Bush’s shots or Dlugash’s shots could have been fatal, but none could determine whether Geller was alive when Dlugash fired.
- The trial judge did not instruct the jury on accomplice liability; the case was submitted on intentional murder and attempted murder.
- The jury convicted Dlugash of murder.
- On appeal, the murder conviction was set aside due to the lack of proof that Geller was alive when Dlugash shot; the conviction was reduced to attempted murder under New York’s attempt-impossibility statute.
- Dlugash then sought federal habeas relief, arguing the attempted-murder conviction violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

## Issues

1. Whether applying New York’s attempt statute to permit attempted-murder liability where the victim may already have been dead violates due process by criminalizing noncriminal conduct.
2. Whether converting a jury’s murder verdict into an attempted-murder conviction improperly supplied missing elements (including the defendant’s belief) without proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
3. Whether the state courts relied on an unconstitutional presumption or otherwise accepted evidence so insufficient that the conviction violated due process.

## Decision

- The district court denied the petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
- It held that New York’s attempt-impossibility rule (punishing attempt based on the defendant’s intent and belief) did not violate federal due process.
- It held the state courts’ treatment of the jury’s murder verdict as establishing the mental-state predicates for attempted murder was not constitutionally defective.
- It concluded the record permitted a rational factfinder to infer beyond a reasonable doubt that Dlugash intended to kill and believed Geller was alive (or might be alive) when he fired.
- It rejected the claim that the conviction rested on an unconstitutional, burden-shifting presumption of intent, characterizing the reasoning as relying on permissible inferences from conduct and circumstances.

## Legal Principles

- Federal habeas review of a state conviction does not re-decide state law; relief is available only if the conviction resulted in a due process violation.
- A state may define attempt liability to turn on the actor’s culpable intent and belief, and may reject factual or legal impossibility as a defense, consistent with due process.
- Due process is satisfied where evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, permits a rational trier of fact to find each element beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Permissive inferences drawn from conduct and surrounding facts differ from mandatory presumptions; due process concerns arise when an instruction compels an element finding or shifts the burden of proof.

## Conclusion

The court held that New York’s attempted-murder conviction, grounded in the defendant’s intent and belief under the state’s impossibility rule and supported by rational inferences from the evidence, did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment; habeas relief was therefore denied.


Dlugash v. People of State of N.Y., 476 F. Supp. 921 (E.D.N.Y. 1979)