## Facts

- Lebarron Keith Williams confronted Gregory King at the home of Deborah Nicholson, with whom both men had relationships and disputed paternity of a child.
- King arrived with his two teenage sons, parked his pickup at the curb, went to the door, left a note, and returned toward his truck.
- Williams told King to stay away from Nicholson, then went to his own truck, retrieved a shotgun, and loaded two rounds.
- Williams fired a shot at the rear passenger-side wheel well of King’s truck; the shot struck the truck and tire, and no one was hit.
- Williams testified the truck was between him and King and that King was crouched close to the rear fender area; Williams said he did not see King’s sons near the truck.
- A jury convicted Williams of assault with a firearm on King (and other offenses); the trial court instructed on assault using standard instructions focusing on whether the act would probably and directly result in injury.
- The Court of Appeal reversed the assault conviction based on an asserted mens rea instructional error; the California Supreme Court granted review.

## Issues

1. What mental state does California assault require: actual knowledge of facts making injury a probable and direct result, or an objective “reasonable person should have known” standard?
2. If the assault instruction failed to require actual knowledge of the operative facts, was the error prejudicial?

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court held assault is a general-intent crime but requires the defendant’s actual knowledge of the facts that make the act likely to result in injury.
- The Court rejected assault liability based solely on negligence-style foreseeability (what a reasonable person should have known).
- The Court found any instructional omission regarding actual knowledge harmless on this record.
- The Court reversed the Court of Appeal and reinstated Williams’s assault-with-a-firearm conviction.

## Legal Principles

- Assault does not require a specific intent to injure; it requires a willful act that, by its nature, will probably and directly result in injury.
- Assault requires actual knowledge of the facts sufficient to establish that the defendant’s act will probably and directly result in injury to another.
- The prosecution need not prove the defendant subjectively appreciated that injury was “probable” in a legal sense; it must prove the defendant knew the operative facts and willfully performed the act.
- Jury instructions on assault are erroneous if they permit conviction based only on what a reasonable person would have foreseen, without requiring the defendant’s actual awareness of the facts creating the risk.
- Instructional error on assault mens rea is subject to harmless-error review; reversal is not required where the evidence shows the jury necessarily would have found the required knowledge under correct instructions.

## Conclusion

The court clarified that California assault requires actual awareness of the facts making the charged act dangerous, while reaffirming that intent to cause injury is unnecessary; applying that rule, it held any instructional defect was harmless and reinstated the assault conviction.


People v. Williams, 26 Cal. 4th 779 (Cal. 2001)