## Facts

- Ten-year-old Jasper Moffitt was struck in the head by a bullet during gunfire near his family’s store in Columbus, Ohio, and died from the wound.
- Earlier that day, Allen Brian Mullins was seen carrying a silver nine-millimeter pistol and stated he was going to kill “the Detroit dudes,” whom he believed were riding in a white Cadillac in the neighborhood.
- When Mullins later saw a white Cadillac he believed contained those individuals, he fired at it from over a city block away.
- During the shooting, a woman cried out that her baby had been shot.
- Mullins left the area afterward and later attempted to conceal his identity in interactions with police.
- A Franklin County jury acquitted Mullins of aggravated murder but convicted him of murder (as a lesser included offense) with a firearm specification; the trial court imposed 15 years to life plus a consecutive three-year firearm term.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support a murder conviction (purpose to cause death) rather than only involuntary manslaughter.
2. Whether transferred intent applies to Ohio’s murder statute where the defendant intends to kill one person (or group) but kills an unintended victim.
3. Whether the evidence was sufficient to identify Mullins as the shooter beyond a reasonable doubt.

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed the conviction and sentence.
- The evidence permitted a rational jury to find Mullins acted with a purpose to kill the occupants of the Cadillac, and that intent supported a murder conviction despite the unintended victim.
- The court held transferred intent applies to Ohio murder and was not eliminated by statutory changes addressing aggravated murder.
- The court held the record contained sufficient evidence for the jury to find Mullins was the person who fired the fatal shot.

## Legal Principles

- In reviewing sufficiency of the evidence, an appellate court asks whether, viewing the evidence most favorably to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could find the essential elements proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Under Ohio law, transferred intent applies to murder: a defendant’s purpose to kill an intended target may be imputed when a bystander is killed instead.
- Legislative limits on transferred intent for aggravated murder do not, without comparable changes, abolish transferred intent for murder under the separate murder statute.
- Purpose to kill may be inferred from statements of intent and purposeful firing of a firearm at perceived human targets; the unintended identity of the victim does not reduce the offense to involuntary manslaughter when purposeful killing intent is shown.
- Identification may be proved by circumstantial evidence, including witness testimony placing the defendant with the weapon and at the scene, coupled with post-offense conduct such as flight or concealment.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Mullins’s murder conviction for the death of an unintended child victim, ruling that evidence of a purpose to kill the intended targets supported murder and that Ohio’s doctrine of transferred intent remains applicable to murder notwithstanding statutory changes affecting aggravated murder.


State v. Mullins, 76 Ohio App. 3d 633 (Ohio Ct. App. 1992)