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
- Whether the doctrine of transferred intent applies to attempted murder.
- Whether a defendant who targets one person may be convicted of attempted murder of others based on concurrent intent within a “kill zone.”
- 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.