## Facts

- Jomo K. Bland fired multiple shots into a car occupied by a driver and two passengers.
- The driver was killed; both passengers were wounded but survived.
- A jury convicted Bland of first degree murder (driver) and two counts of willful, deliberate, and premeditated attempted murder (passengers).
- The jury found true firearm enhancements under Cal. Penal Code § 12022.53(d) for intentional personal discharge causing great bodily injury or death.
- The trial court instructed on transferred intent and on the enhancement but did not define “proximate causation.”
- The Court of Appeal reversed the attempted murder convictions and certain enhancements.
- The California Supreme Court granted review to address transferred intent, the basis for multiple attempted murder convictions, and proximate causation instructions for § 12022.53(d).

## Issues

1. Whether the doctrine of transferred intent applies to attempted murder.
2. Whether a defendant who targets one person may be convicted of attempted murder of others based on concurrent intent within a “kill zone.”
3. Whether failure to define “proximate causation” in instructing on § 12022.53(d) is error, and if so, whether it is prejudicial.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeal and reinstated the attempted murder convictions and § 12022.53(d) enhancement findings.
- The Court held transferred intent does not apply to attempted murder because attempt liability depends on what the defendant intended but failed to accomplish as to a particular victim.
- The Court held multiple attempted murder convictions may be supported by a theory of concurrent intent where the defendant employs a means of attack that creates a zone of fatal harm around the primary target.
- The Court reaffirmed that transferred intent remains applicable to completed murder, including unintended victims actually killed.
- The Court held the failure to define “proximate causation” for § 12022.53(d) was instructional error but harmless on the facts.
- The Court concluded the attempted murder instructions, considered as a whole, did not create a reasonable likelihood the jury convicted on an invalid transferred-intent theory.

## Legal Principles

- Attempted murder requires a specific intent to kill the alleged victim plus a direct but ineffectual act toward that killing; transferred intent cannot supply the intent element for attempted murder of an unintended victim.
- A defendant may be convicted of multiple attempted murders under a concurrent-intent (“kill zone”) theory when the method of attack is intended to kill the primary target by creating a lethal zone that includes others, supporting an inference the defendant intended to kill each person in that zone.
- Transferred intent applies to completed murder: an intent to kill extends to each person actually killed, even if the defendant also killed an intended target.
- For Cal. Penal Code § 12022.53(d), “proximate cause” is an element that should be defined for the jury; omission may be harmless when causation is clear and uncontested under any proper definition.

## Conclusion

The court clarified that transferred intent is limited to completed homicide and cannot support attempted murder, while recognizing that multiple attempted murder convictions may rest on concurrent intent when a defendant creates a lethal “kill zone”; it also held an omitted proximate-cause definition for a firearm enhancement was harmless where the shooting plainly caused the death and injuries.


People v. Bland, 28 Cal. 4th 313 (Cal. 2002)