Court Opinion

ID: 9697314
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:12:50.898338+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:31.473190
License: Public Domain

McAULIFFE, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result, and join in the Court’s opinion except as to the dictum concerning the doctrine of transferred intent, found in Part IV C.
*724The Court holds that the defendant failed to preserve the alleged error of instructing the jury about transferred intent, and that in any event, the evidence was sufficient to support the convictions on other grounds. The Court then proceeds by way of dictum to discuss the doctrine of transferred intent, and to invalidate a portion of that doctrine that we recently and specifically approved in State v. Wilson, 313 Md. 600, 546 A.2d 1041 (1988).
Specifically, the Court states that the doctrine cannot apply: 1) to a crime requiring a specific intent to cause a specific type of harm to a specific person; and, 2) where the crime intended has actually been committed against the intended victim. Contrary to the suggestion of the majority, the first limitation on the use of the doctrine was not approved in Wilson, 313 Md. at 606 n. 3. Although of dubious validity, the first limitation is not the part of the Court’s dictum that prompts this' opinion. Rather, I am concerned with the Court’s unnecessary, and in my opinion ill-advised, acceptance of the second limitation.
The Court cites three decisions of California Courts of Appeal in support of the second limitation. A California case not cited by the majority, People v. Carlson, 37 Cal.App.3d 349, 112 Cal.Rptr. 321 (1974), appears to be to the contrary. In that case, the defendant killed his pregnant wife under circumstances sufficient to support a finding of manslaughter. Although the defendant may have had no intention to kill the unborn child his wife was carrying, the California court found that he would be criminally liable for his wife’s death and the death of the fetus under the doctrine of transferred intent. Id. at 325. The rationale of the Carlson case was adopted and approved by the Court of Appeals of Michigan in People v. Lovett, 90 Mich.App. 169, 283 N.W.2d 357, 360 (1979). In 1989, the Supreme Court of California referred to two of the cases cited by the majority, and to Carlson, stating that although it had approved the rule of transferred intent in cases involving homicides, the court had not considered application of the doctrine where both the intended and the unin*725tended victims were killed or injured. People v. Hunter, 49 Cal.3d 957, 264 Cal.Rptr. 367, 379, 782 P.2d 608, 620 (1989).
Other courts have taken a different view of the applicability of the doctrine of transferred intent where both the intended and unintended victims were injured or killed. In State v. Worlock, 117 N.J. 596, 569 A.2d 1314 (1990), the Supreme Court of New Jersey rejected the defendant’s argument that it should follow the rationale of the California courts relied upon by the majority here. The court said:
When a defendant contemplates or designs the death of another, the purpose of deterrence is better served by holding that defendant responsible for the knowing or purposeful murder of the unintended as well as the intended victim. Hence, we reject defendant’s argument that the successful killing of the intended victim prevents the ‘transfer’ of that intent to an unintended victim.
Id. at 1325. The New Jersey court also noted that federal courts have likewise applied the principle of transferred intent in cases where the intended victim is killed by the same act that kills the unintended victim, citing United States v. Sampol, 636 F.2d 621, 674 (D.C.Cir.1980), and United States v. Weddell, 567 F.2d 767, 769-70 (8th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 436 U.S. 919, 98 S.Ct. 2267, 56 L.Ed.2d 761 (1978). Id.
Recently, the Supreme Court of Delaware stated: “We adopt the view announced by the New Jersey Supreme Court in State v. Worlock....” Robinson v. State, 1992 WL 426439, 620 A.2d 859 (Del.Supr.1992) (unpublished). The Delaware court found that view entirely consistent with the statute of that state dealing with transferred intent, which provides:
The element of intentional or knowing causation is not established if the actual result is outside the intention or the contemplation of the defendant unless:
(1) The actual result differs from that intended or contemplated, as the case may be, only in the respect that a different person ... is injured or affected____
*72611 Del.C. § 262. The Delaware statute essentially tracks § 2.03 of the Model Penal Code (1962).
The Court’s newly announced limitation on the doctrine of transferred intent is likely to present some interesting problems. Assume, for example, that the defendant, intending to kill A, shoots and wounds him, but the bullet passes through A and kills B. Under the Court’s theory, I assume the defendant would be guilty of the murder of B, although also guilty of attempted murder or assault with intent to murder A. If A had also died, the Court would hold that the defendant could not be convicted of the murder of B, but only of battery, or perhaps manslaughter. What happens, then, if the defendant is convicted of the murder of B while A is still alive, but A dies of wounds received in the assault within a year and a day of the shooting?
In my judgment, the Court goes too far in its attempt to limit the utilization of the doctrine of transferred intent in criminal cases. I would simply excise that dictum from the opinion.
RODOWSKY and KARWACKI, JJ., join in this opinion.