Opinion ID: 202332
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Conditional Intent

Text: 12 In Holloway, the Supreme Court confronted the meaning of the phrase with the intent to cause death or serious bodily harm in the carjacking statute. The question in Holloway was whether that phrase requires the government to prove that the defendant had an unconditional intent to kill or harm in all events, or whether it merely requires proof of an intent to kill or harm if necessary to effect a carjacking. 526 U.S. at 3, 119 S.Ct. 966. The Court answered that question as follows: 13 The specific issue in this case is what sort of evil motive Congress intended to describe when it used the words with the intent to cause death or serious bodily harm . . . . More precisely, the question is whether a person who points a gun at a driver, having decided to pull the trigger if the driver does not comply with the demand for the car keys, possesses the intent, at that moment, to seriously harm the driver. In our view, the answer to that question does not depend on whether the driver immediately hands over the keys or what the offender decides to do after he gains control over the car. At the relevant moment, the offender plainly does have the forbidden intent. 14 Id. at 6-7, 119 S.Ct. 966. In short, if this case had gone to trial, the government would have had to prove that the defendants a) took or attempted to take the victim's car through force and violence or by intimidation, b) that they acted with conditional or unconditional intent to cause death or serious bodily harm, and c) that death resulted. 15