Opinion ID: 765858
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Transferred Intent

Text: 313 Nosair challenges the Court's instruction on the doctrine of transferred intent as applied to Counts Eight and Nine. These counts charged that Nosair shot Franklin and Acosta, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1959, as he was fleeing after the murder of Kahane. In charging on Count Seven, the Kahane murder, Judge Mukasey instructed the jury that an element of the section 1959 RICO offense was that Nosair murdered Kahane in order to maintain or increase his position in the Jihad Organization. Tr. 20509. Then, with respect to Counts Eight and Nine, the Judge similarly charged that an element of these offenses was that Mr. Nosair assaulted Mr. Franklin as charged in Count Eight and Mr. Acosta as charged in Count Nine, in connection with maintaining and increasing his position in the Jihad Organization. Tr. 20514-15. Elaborating on this element, the Judge charged as follows: 314 If you find that Mr. Nosair committed the assaults charged in Counts Eight and Nine or the attempted murder charged in Count Nine, you may decide whether any such crime was committed in aid of racketeering activity by applying the legal principle of transferred intent ... . That principle says that if a defendant planned to commit a murder to maintain or increase his position in an enterprise and, in attempting to carry out that plan, committed a violent assault or attempted murder on another person, the intent of the planned murder may be transferred to the other crimes. 315 What this means for your purposes is that the government may prove the second and third elements of the offense charged in Counts Eight and Nine by proving that on November 5, 1990, the defendant El Sayyid Nosair specifically intended to cause the death of Meir Kahane for the purpose of maintaining or increasing his position in the enterprise, and then willfully shot Irving Franklin, as charged in Count Eight, and Carlos Acosta, as charged in Count Nine, in the course of carrying out or immediately fleeing from the Kahane homicide. 316 Tr. 20515-16. 317 Nosair acknowledges the validity of the doctrine of transferred intent, but contends that it was impermissibly invoked in this case to permit the jury to transfer to the Franklin and Acosta shootings the motive that Nosair had when he murdered Kahane. Application of the doctrine to transfer motive, Nosair contends, permits the jury to draw an irrational inference, in violation of the Due Process Clause. See Francis v. Franklin, 471 U.S. 307, 314-15 (1985) (permissive inference violates Due Process Clause if the suggested conclusion is not one that reason and common sense justify in light of the proven facts before the jury). 318 The doctrine of transferred intent, in its traditional application, permits the fact-finder to attribute or transfer[] to a defendant who shoots at one person with intent to kill and inadvertently kills another the intent to kill the second person. See 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries -01 (Harper ed. 1854). The doctrine has been recognized by the Supreme Court, see Yates v. Evatt, 500 U.S. 391, 409 (1991), and by this Court, see United States v. Concepcion, 983 F.2d 369, 381 (2d Cir. 1992). 319 Contrary to Nosair's contention, Concepcion has already established for this Circuit that the transferred intent doctrine is applicable to transferred motive. Concepcion had approached a retail drug location in order to use violence to settle a territorial dispute with a rival gang. See id. at 375. When a man named Gines got in his way, Concepcion shot him, and Gines died from his wounds. See id. We upheld a section 1959 conviction on the ground that Concepcion set out to commit a proscribed act of violence in order to maintain or increase his position in the enterprise, and that, in the course of so doing, he committed that act against a person who got in his way. Id. at 382. 320 Even if applicable to transferred motive, as in Concepcion, Nosair endeavors to limit the doctrine to instances where the very same act of firing the weapon at the intended target[] produces an immediate and unintended victim. Brief for Nosair at 64. Concepcion refutes such a limitation. Concepcion's shot at Gines was aimed only at Gines; Concepcion's original target had not yet been located. It was the relationship of the shooting to Concepcion's objective that permitted the transfer of a motive to maintain or increase his position in the enterprise. 321 Nosair further contends that the shootings of Franklin and Acosta were too far removed in space and time from the Kahane murder to permit a rational inference of transferred motive and that it was not necessary to shoot the additional victims in order to kill Kahane. See id. at 66. However, there was no significant gap, either in space or time, between the shootings. Franklin was shot as Nosair ran out of the hotel room in which he had just shot Kahane, and Acosta was shot moments later within two blocks of the hotel, as Nosair endeavored to escape. Judge Mukasey appropriately limited the availability of the permissible inference of transferred motive by instructing the jury that the motive element could be found if Nosair shot his additional victims in the course of carrying out or immediately fleeing from the Kahane homicide. Tr. 20516. Furthermore, though it was not necessary to shoot the two subsequent victims in order to kill Kahane, the requisite relationship to the Kahane murder is supplied by Nosair's attempt to escape. Since his escape could readily be found to be a further step taken in order to maintain or increase his position in the enterprise after killing Kahane, the shootings of those who got in his way, Concepcion, 983 F.2d at 382, could also be so found. The transferred motive instruction was entirely proper.