## Facts

- Scott Soden and Angela Frank drove to a mobile-home park to purchase marijuana and waited in their vehicle, with Soden in the driver’s seat and Frank in the front passenger seat.
- Christopher L. Billings pulled up next to them and believed Soden and Frank had information about marijuana that had gone missing.
- Billings approached Soden and Frank’s vehicle carrying a machete and argued with them.
- During the confrontation, Billings slashed at Soden while Soden remained in the driver’s seat, cutting Soden’s wrist to the bone.
- Evidence showed that if the machete had not struck Soden’s wrist, it would have hit Frank in the leg where she was seated.
- Frank was frightened for her life and called the police.
- The State charged Billings with two counts of second degree assault with a deadly weapon under Washington law: one count naming Soden and one naming Frank.
- The first trial ended in a mistrial; at a second trial, the jury convicted Billings on both counts.
- During deliberations at the second trial, the jury asked a question about transferred intent, and the trial court gave a supplemental instruction explaining the doctrine.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by giving a supplemental transferred-intent instruction in response to the jury’s deliberation question.
2. Whether giving the transferred-intent instruction after closing argument deprived Billings of effective assistance of counsel.
3. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support the second degree assault conviction involving Frank, including under a transferred-intent theory.
4. Whether Billings was entitled to relief based on his additional pro se claims, including requests tied to transcripts from the first trial, an evidentiary hearing, or relief based on fairness.

## Decision

- The Washington Court of Appeals, Division Two, affirmed Billings’s convictions for second degree assault with a deadly weapon as to both Soden and Frank.
- The court held the trial court did not abuse its discretion by responding to the jury’s question with a supplemental instruction that accurately stated transferred-intent law and clarified how the jury could apply the existing instructions.
- The court rejected Billings’s ineffective-assistance claim, concluding he failed to show deficient performance or a reasonable probability of a different result.
- The court held the evidence was sufficient for a rational jury to find an assault of Frank: Billings intentionally swung a machete in close quarters, the strike narrowly missed Frank, and the intent directed at Soden could be attributed to the assault charge involving Frank under transferred intent.
- The court denied relief on Billings’s additional pro se grounds, including requests tied to obtaining and comparing a verbatim transcript from the mistried first trial and requests for a remand or stay.

## Legal Principles

- A trial court’s answer to a jury question during deliberations, including a supplemental instruction, is reviewed for abuse of discretion; the response must correctly state the law and must not mislead the jury or comment on the evidence.
- Under Washington’s transferred-intent doctrine, when a defendant acts with intent directed at one person, that intent may satisfy the intent element as to another person affected by the same act (including where the act places the other person in reasonable fear of harm).
- Ineffective assistance of counsel requires proof of both deficient performance and prejudice under Strickland; a defendant must show a reasonable probability that the outcome would have differed absent the claimed error.
- Evidence is sufficient if, viewing it in the light most favorable to the State, any rational factfinder could find the elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt.
- On direct appeal, claims requiring facts outside the record (including complaints about trial-strategy shifts between a mistrial and retrial) generally do not justify relief without a developed record, and a defendant must show a legal basis for stays, remands, or transcript-related requests.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed Billings’s two assault convictions arising from a machete attack inside a car, ruling that the trial judge permissibly clarified transferred intent during deliberations, Billings did not prove ineffective assistance, and the evidence supported the finding that Frank was assaulted because the machete swing aimed at Soden would have struck her and placed her in fear.


State v. Billings, 4 Wash. App. 2d 1014 (2018)