THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA 

In The Court of Appeals 

The State, Respondent, 

v. 

Devonta Edward Williams, Appellant. 

Appellate Case No. 2019-000222 

Appeal From Horry County 

Steven H. John, Circuit Court Judge 

Opinion No. 5918 

Heard March 15, 2022 – Filed June 15, 2022 

AFFIRMED 

Appellate Defender Joanna Katherine Delany, of 

Columbia, for Appellant. 

Attorney General Alan McCrory Wilson, Deputy 

Attorney General Donald J. Zelenka, Senior Assistant 

Deputy Attorney General Melody Jane Brown, and 

Assistant Attorney General Tommy Evans, Jr., all of 

Columbia; and Solicitor Jimmy A. Richardson, II, of 

Conway, for Respondent. 

HEWITT, J.: This case calls on us to again address the specific intent crime of 

attempted murder. Devonta Edward Williams argues the trial court should have 

directed a verdict of acquittal because he sees no evidence he intended to kill the 

particular individual named in one of his attempted murder indictments. The trial 

court sent the case to the jury, relying on transferred intent. 
The trial court could not have foreseen that this court would subsequently hold 

transferred intent does not apply to attempted murder. Even so, we are convinced 

there was evidence at the directed verdict stage from which a jury could find 

Williams intended to kill the individual in question because the individual was 

within the zone of danger created by Williams' conduct. For that reason, we affirm. 

FACTS 

An Horry County grand jury indicted Williams for the murder of one man and the 

attempted murder of two others. Williams proceeded to a jury trial. This appeal 

concerns his conviction for the attempted murder of Letrevias Knox. 

Witnesses testified Williams approached a group of approximately eight people who 

were gathered outdoors, asked someone in the group "where's my money," and 

began shooting. Knox was in the group. He said he was shot in the shoulder and 

the back of a leg as he ran away. Multiple witnesses said Williams was the only 

person they saw with a gun during the incident. 

Williams moved for a directed verdict on all charges. As relevant here, Williams 

argued the State did not present evidence he deliberately intended to shoot Knox. 

For his part, Knox had already testified that he did not know who shot him or why 

he was shot. 

The State argued Williams' intent to injure other people could be firmly established 

by the testimony that Williams purposefully approached the scene, demanded 

money, opened fire, and was the only person seen with a gun. The State also argued 

that under transferred intent, "malice follows the bullet." As already noted, the trial 

court cited transferred intent in denying the directed verdict motion. 

Williams testified immediately after his directed verdict motions were denied. He 

admitted approaching the group of people but claimed he had no specific purpose 

for being there. He said he did not mention anything about money; instead, he said 

he asked about his moped. Williams claimed he saw one person—Brandon Wells— 

move as though he was reaching for a gun and that Wells had a reputation for 

carrying weapons. Williams said he heard gunshots and ran behind a car before he 

could pull out his own gun. 

Williams renewed his directed verdict motions after his testimony. The trial court 

denied them. 
The trial court charged the jury on transferred intent. Williams did not object. The 

jury found Williams guilty as indicted. The trial court sentenced him to concurrent 

terms of thirty-five years' imprisonment for murder and thirty years' imprisonment 

for both counts of attempted murder. 

ISSUE 

Whether the trial court erred in denying a directed verdict of acquittal on the charge 

Williams attempted to murder Knox. 

STANDARD OF REVIEW 

"On appeal from the denial of a directed verdict, this [c]ourt views the evidence and 

all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the State." State v. Pearson, 

415 S.C. 463, 470, 783 S.E.2d 802, 806 (2016) (quoting State v. Butler, 407 S.C. 

376, 381, 755 S.E.2d 457, 460 (2014)). "If the [S]tate has presented 'any direct 

evidence or any substantial circumstantial evidence reasonably tending to prove the 

guilt of the accused,' this [c]ourt must affirm the trial court's decision to submit the 

case to the jury." State v. Hepburn, 406 S.C. 416, 429, 753 S.E.2d 402, 409 (2013) 

(quoting State v. Cherry, 361 S.C. 588, 593-94, 606 S.E.2d 475, 478 (2004)). "The 

case should be submitted to the jury if there is any substantial evidence [that] 

reasonably tends to prove the guilt of the accused, or from which his guilt may be 

fairly or logically deduced." State v. Robinson, 310 S.C. 535, 538, 426 S.E.2d 317, 

319 (1992). 

ANALYSIS 

Over the last few years, this court and our supreme court have written several cases 

about attempted murder. This particular crime often seems to present confusing 

issues. First, we mention State v. King, which held attempted murder is a specific 

intent crime, in part because attempt criminalizes intent and "it is logically 

impossible to attempt an unintended result." 422 S.C. 47, 56, 810 S.E.2d 18, 23 

(2017) (quoting 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law: Substantive Principles § 156, at 221-22 

(2016)). Also relevant is State v. Gerald Rudell Williams, which vacated a decision 

from this court that found transferred intent applied to attempted murder. 427 S.C. 

148, 158, 829 S.E.2d 702, 707 (2019). 

Two of this court's decisions stand for the proposition that transferred intent does 

not apply to attempted murder. We read these cases as saying that shifting the 
 

 

defendant's intent to kill from the targeted victim to an injured bystander does not 

satisfy the specific intent for attempted murder; though the defendant had the 

specific intent to kill, he did not have the specific intent to kill the bystander. See 

State v. Geter, 434 S.C. 557, 568, 864 S.E.2d 569, 575 (Ct. App. 2021); State v. 

James Caleb Williams, 435 S.C. 288, 299, 867 S.E.2d 430, 436 (Ct. App. 2021). As 

of now, there are requests in both cases for supreme court review. 

We think an illustration shows why the recent decisions from this court are correct 

in reasoning that transferred intent does not apply to attempted murder. Suppose 

Peter fires a single shot at Paul in an attempt to kill him. The bullet misses Paul and 

hits and injures Mary instead. As far as attempted murder is concerned, Peter 

attempted to murder Paul, not Mary. After all, there is no evidence Peter intended 

to kill Mary. His intent was to kill Paul. 

Some might argue it makes sense to "transfer" the intended victim status from Paul 

to Mary. We believe the logic of King rejects this reasoning. King noted it is not 

possible to specifically intend an unintended result. Peter's specific intent was to kill 

Paul, not Mary. 

Some might argue it is proper to charge attempted murder of both Paul and Mary. 

We think not. Transferred intent "makes a whole crime out of two halves," Gerald 

Rudell Williams, 427 S.C. at 150, 829 S.E.2d at 702-03—if Mary died, transferred 

intent would allow Peter's criminal intent to injure Paul to join with his act of injuring 

Mary and make Peter guilty of Mary's murder. We are not aware of authority 

supporting the view that transferred intent is a multiplier for increasing liability when 

an attempted crime is not successful. It would be illogical to say Peter fired a single 

shot intending to kill both Paul and Mary. 

Now consider an entirely different hypothetical. This one comes to us from the 

Supreme Court of California in People v. Bland, 48 P.3d 1107 (Cal. 2002). Suppose 

a villain intends to kill a particular target. The criminal sees the target standing in a 

group of people, and in an effort to ensure the target's death, the villain shoots 

multiple times in the group's direction. Bland explains that when the villain 

escalated his attack from a single bullet aimed at the target to a hail of bullets into 

the group, a factfinder could reasonably infer that the villain concurrently intended 

to kill multiple people in the immediate vicinity. Id. at 1118. To be clear, this is not 

transferred intent. The villain's primary goal was to kill the target. However, the 

circumstances also warrant the jury inferring the villain intended to kill others in the 

vicinity too. 
We think this case is like that hypothetical. In the light most favorable to the State, 

Williams approached a group of people, argued with someone in the group, pointed 

his gun into the group, and fired at least four shots. He killed one person and injured 

two others, including Knox. 

We think this version of events supports a valid theory of attempted murder. We 

note that intent to kill—even specific intent to kill—may be shown by circumstantial 

evidence. State v. Taylor, 434 S.C. 365, 862 S.E.2d 924 (Ct. App. 2021) (finding 

intent to kill may be shown through circumstantial evidence), cert pending; cf. State 

v. McGowan, 430 S.C. 373, 381, 845 S.E.2d 503, 507 (Ct. App. 2020) (finding 

verdict of first degree assault and battery of a child victim was not supported by 

evidence of specific intent to injure the child when no evidence was presented 

McGowan knew the child was in the home when McGowan shot in the direction of 

the home). It is, after all, only natural to infer that when someone shoots at another 

person, the shooter intends to kill. By the same reasoning, when someone points 

and fires a deadly weapon multiple times at a group of people he knows are in the 

line of fire, we believe a rational juror could infer the shooter intended to murder 

whoever may have been injured in that group. See Gerald Rudell Williams, 427 S.C. 

at 157 n.9, 829 S.E.2d at 707 n.9 (finding the doctrine of transferred intent was 

unnecessary to uphold Williams' conviction of attempted murder when evidence was 

presented indicating Williams intended to kill "the figure in the doorway" regardless 

of whether Williams had premeditated motive to kill that particular person in the 

doorway); see also King, 422 S.C. at 55, 810 S.E.2d at 22 (agreeing with our holding 

that the State must "prove specific intent to commit murder"). 

We can think of two things that bear further mentioning. First, we are concerned 

about attempts to over-read this decision. We do not think, for example, that 

Williams could be charged with eight counts of attempted murder on the theory that 

there were eight people in the group. The evidence showed he shot four times, and 

only three people were injured. As with the reasoning we have already given, 

attempt crimes ensure the unsuccessful criminal is punished; they are not designed 

to multiply liability for a failed plan with no regard for the defendant's specific intent. 

Here, we seek only to recognize that the jury may infer specific intent to kill multiple 

people if the circumstances allow. If, for example, the evidence was that Williams 

only intended to kill one person, but placed a bomb outside a building where he knew 

several people were located, we think common sense dictates he could be charged 

with the attempted murder of all. 

Second, we must note that this "zone of danger" theory is not the theory the State 

used at trial. We have mixed feelings about affirming when precedent has 
 

subsequently rejected the argument the State took to the jury, but as we noted at the 

beginning, there was no objection to the jury charges on transferred intent. 

Here, we are asked only to review the denial of directed verdict, and we must affirm 

as long as there is evidence reasonably tending to prove the guilt of the accused. 

Precedent also counsels that we should affirm as long as the circuit court's ruling is 

correct, even if the reasoning is not. State v. Goodstein, 278 S.C. 125, 128, 292 

S.E.2d 791, 793 (1982). We are convinced a jury could properly infer Williams 

intended to kill Knox based on evidence Williams purposefully directed deadly force 

at a group of people. 

CONCLUSION 

Despite the trial court's erroneous reliance on the doctrine of transferred intent in 

denying Williams' directed verdict motion, Williams' conviction and sentence for 

the attempted murder of Knox is 

AFFIRMED. 

THOMAS and MCDONALD, JJ., concur.