## Facts

- Gerard Harrison fired six shots from a .38 caliber revolver at an intended target known as “Valentine” in Baltimore City.
- Harrison missed Valentine, but a bullet struck bystander James Cook in the neck, injuring him.
- The State indicted Harrison on multiple charges, including attempted murder counts, assault-related counts, reckless endangerment, and handgun/firearm offenses.
- At a bench trial, the parties proceeded on an agreed statement of facts; witnesses were described as seeing Harrison firing in Cook’s direction.
- The record did not establish Cook’s precise location relative to Valentine or whether Cook was in a confined area immediately surrounding the intended target.
- The trial court found Harrison had a specific intent to kill Valentine and convicted him of attempted second-degree murder of Cook, relying on transferred intent and a concurrent-intent (“kill zone”) theory, and also convicted him of handgun use in a felony/crime of violence.

## Issues

1. Whether transferred intent may supply the specific intent element for attempted murder when the defendant intended to kill one person but instead injured another.
2. Whether the stipulated facts were sufficient to prove attempted second-degree murder of the bystander under a concurrent-intent/kill-zone theory.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals of Maryland reversed the attempted second-degree murder conviction.
- The court held that transferred intent does not apply to attempted murder.
- The court held the evidence was insufficient to establish a concurrent intent to kill Cook under a kill-zone theory because the record did not show Cook occupied a defined zone of fatal harm created to ensure the primary target’s death.
- The handgun-use conviction was not disturbed by the court’s analysis of intent for attempted murder.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the court’s opinion.

## Legal Principles

- Attempted murder requires proof of a specific intent to kill the person named as the victim of the attempt.
- In Maryland, transferred intent is confined to completed homicides (and does not supply the intent element for attempted murder).
- A concurrent-intent/kill-zone theory can support attempted murder only where the method of attack and the victim’s placement permit an inference that the defendant intended to kill everyone within a deliberately created zone of fatal harm.
- Mere bystander injury from shots aimed at a single target, without proof of the bystander’s presence within a defined kill zone, is insufficient to prove specific intent to kill that bystander.

## Conclusion

The court vacated Harrison’s attempted second-degree murder conviction because Maryland law does not permit transferred intent to establish attempted murder and the stipulated facts did not support a kill-zone inference that Harrison specifically intended to kill the bystander Cook.


Harrison v. State, 382 Md. 477, 855 A.2d 1220 (Md. 2004)