## Facts

- Around 1:00 a.m., off-duty Dallas police officer Jerry M. Rhodes followed a car that was weaving and moving erratically on a Dallas freeway.
- Rhodes testified that Dennis LaFaine Flanagan, leaning from the passenger window, fired a single shotgun blast toward Rhodes’s pickup truck.
- The pellets struck the front grill and hood, causing minor damage; Rhodes was not injured.
- Rhodes described the ammunition as birdshot from a single-barrel shotgun and said the impact sounded like small BBs.
- Rhodes did not return fire due to nearby traffic and businesses; he obtained a partial license plate number, and the vehicle was traced to Flanagan.
- Rhodes later identified Flanagan as the shooter; Flanagan denied firing and claimed he had been the driver, not the passenger.
- Flanagan was indicted for attempted murder, convicted in a bench trial, and sentenced to 20 years’ confinement.

## Issues

1. Whether attempted murder under Texas law requires proof of a specific intent to kill.
2. Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Flanagan had the specific intent to kill Rhodes when he fired the shotgun.

## Decision

- The court held that attempted murder requires proof of a specific intent to kill.
- Applying the sufficiency standard (viewing evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict), the court held the evidence insufficient to establish intent to kill beyond a reasonable doubt.
- The court reversed the attempted-murder conviction and rendered a judgment of acquittal on that charge.

## Legal Principles

- Attempted murder requires proof that the defendant had a specific intent to cause the victim’s death; proof supporting a lesser assaultive mental state does not satisfy that requirement.
- Intent to kill may be inferred from the use of a deadly weapon only when the weapon is used in a manner capable of causing death under the circumstances shown by the evidence.
- Where the ammunition or manner of firing makes death unlikely, the mere act of firing a shotgun at another, without additional evidence (e.g., distance, angle, lethality in context), does not permit an inference of specific intent to kill beyond a reasonable doubt.
- When evidence is legally insufficient to prove an essential element, the proper appellate disposition is reversal with a judgment of acquittal.

## Conclusion

The court required strict proof of a conscious objective to cause death for attempted murder and found that a single birdshot blast causing only minor vehicle damage, without evidence showing lethal capability in context, did not prove specific intent to kill beyond a reasonable doubt.


Flanagan v. State, 675 S.W.2d 734 (Tex. Crim. App. 1982)