Opinion ID: 1402588
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Requested Instruction on Transferred Intent for Voluntary Manslaughter

Text: {18} Coffin also contends that the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury on transferred intent with respect to the charge of voluntary manslaughter. Specifically, Coffin submitted the following instruction to the trial court: When one intends to kill or injure a certain person, and by mistake or accident kills a different person, the crime, if any, is the same as though the original intended victim had been killed. In such a case, the law regards the intent as transferred from the original intended victim to the actual victim. See UJI 14-255 NMRA 1999. The use note to UJI 14-255 indicates that this instruction is not to be given if the victim died as a result of first degree murder by a deliberate design to effect the death of any human being because that situation is adequately addressed by a different jury instruction, see UJI 14-201 use note 2 NMRA 1999. The committee commentary to UJI 14-255 indicates that the instruction is instead to be used in other instances of first degree murder or for second degree murder, but the commentary does not mention voluntary manslaughter. {19} Drawing an analogy to the principle that, where an innocent bystander is accidentally killed during the attempt to defend oneself, the doctrine of self-defense provides a defense against the unintended killing, Abeyta, 120 N.M. at 243, 901 P.2d at 174, Coffin apparently intended to give this instruction to the jury in an attempt to transfer the alleged provocation of Chris Martinez, Sr. to his act of killing Chris Martinez, Jr. As we noted in Abeyta, the Court of Appeals has held that one may not transfer `one's passion from the object of the passion to a related bystander.' Abeyta, 120 N.M. at 243, 901 P.2d at 174 (quoting State v. Gutierrez, 88 N.M. 448, 451, 541 P.2d 628, 631 (Ct.App.1975)). Coffin, however, contends that our opinion in State v. Griego, 61 N.M. 42, 294 P.2d 282 (1956), stands for the principle that transferred intent applies to voluntary manslaughter. See generally 1 Wayne R. LaFave & Austin W. Scott, Jr., Substantive Criminal Law § 3.12(d), at 402 (1986) ([I]f A aims at B with intent to kill under circumstances which would make him guilty of voluntary manslaughter of B, but he hits and [accidentally] kills C instead, A is guilty of voluntary manslaughter of C.). We note that Griego dealt with the question of sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction of voluntary manslaughter, not with a requested instruction on transferred intent. Griego, 61 N.M. at 44-45, 294 P.2d at 283. Nevertheless, it is unnecessary for us to decide in this case whether the Court of Appeals' conclusion in Gutierrez conflicts with our prior holding in Griego or whether the partial excuse of sufficient provocation may be transferred from the source or cause of the relevant extreme emotion to an accidentally killed innocent bystander. There is no evidence in this case suggesting that Coffin accidentally killed either Chris Martinez, Sr. or Chris Martinez, Jr. {20} Three people testified that they directly observed the shooting: Coffin, Deanda Montoya, and Leo Gonzales. Coffin testified that, after he told the Martinezes to return to their car and they began to do so, both of them came at him, and he aimed his gun at pretty much both of them. Deanda Montoya testified that after she heard the first gunshot she saw Coffin tell a man without a shirt, presumably Chris Martinez, Jr. based on other testimony, to return to his car and that as he did so Coffin shot him. Montoya also testified that, after Coffin shot Chris Martinez, Jr. a couple of times, Coffin walked closer and shot him while he was on the ground. Leo Gonzales testified that he saw Coffin fire his gun toward the ground. Finally, John Saldana testified that Coffin told him that he shot Chris Martinez, Jr. because he was a witness to the crime, though Saldana qualified this testimony on cross-examination by saying that he was unsure whether Coffin or someone else had made that statement. None of this testimony supports a view of the evidence that Coffin killed either of the Martinezes by accident. Therefore, to the extent that Coffin attempted to inject the issue of transferred provocation into this case, the trial court properly refused his requested instruction. [1] {21} Further, Coffin's requested instruction contained the principle of transferred intent, not transferred provocation. In this regard, Coffin's instruction, instead of supporting his apparent theory, would have been beneficial to the State, and the trial court's refusal to give the instruction could not have harmed Coffin. See State v. Fekete, 120 N.M. 290, 296, 901 P.2d 708, 714 (1995) (The doctrine of transferred intent is a legal fiction that is used to hold a defendant criminally liable to the full extent of his or her criminal culpability.); People v. Czahara, 203 Cal.App.3d 1468, 250 Cal.Rptr. 836, 838-39 (1988) (stating that [t]he transferred intent rule serves to ensure that [a defendant] is punished to the full extent of his [or her] culpability and stating that the transferred intent rule is inapplicable if the intended victim is killed because the killer's punishment can be commensurate to his or her full culpability without the concept of transferred intent); Juarez v. State, 886 S.W.2d 511, 514 (Tex.App.1994) (The doctrine of transferred intent serves to expand a defendant's liability when an act has an unexpected consequence. (emphasis added)). Thus, even if there had been error in refusing this instruction, it would have been harmless. See Juarez, 886 S.W.2d at 514.