Court Opinion

ID: 9752208
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 17:45:36.447677+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:51:52.756993
License: Public Domain

BLOOM, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur with most of the majority opinion. I agree with the affirmance of all of the convictions for battery and malicious destruction of property. I agree that the sentences on Counts 81 and 90, for malicious destruction of property having a value of less than $300, exceeded the statutory maximum and must be vacated for that reason. I agree also with the ruling on appellant’s double jeopardy contention. And finally, I agree with the affirmance of the convictions on Counts 7, 22, 24, 54, 60, 73, and 76, for assault with intent to disable James Palmer, Jeanette George, Reginald Bailey, Bruce Tillery, Carolyn Bryant, David Powell, and Robert Senkel, respectively.
I part company with the majority, however, with respect to its affirmances on Count 2, for assault with intent to maim Destiny Morris, and on Counts 3, 19, 31, and 88, for assaults with intent to disable Destiny Morris, Rodney Marbury, LaShonda Thompson, and Kelly Moody, respectively.
The trial judge denied appellant’s motion for judgment of acquittal as to those counts and let them go to the jury on the theory that the doctrine of transferred intent applied. As the majority opinion correctly points out, the doctrine of transferred intent does not apply to the statutory offenses of assault with intent to maim or disable, which requires a *702specific intent to cause a particular type of harm to a specific person — the one assaulted.
The trial judge’s conclusion that the doctrine of transferred intent furnished an adequate basis for denial of appellant’s motion for acquittal was, therefore, erroneous. That does not dispose of the issue, however. If there were any evidence from which the jury could find the existence of the requisite specific intent, the ruling — denial of appellant’s motion for acquittal — would be correct even if the stated reason for the ruling were wrong.
What then was the evidence disclosing the state of mind of appellant or any other of the youths who hurled rocks at motor vehicles traveling along the interstate highway? It was nighttime — between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m. according to the testimony of some of the victims. There was no evidence as to any external illumination and, in view of the nature of the locale, there was no likelihood of any illumination except from headlights of approaching vehicles. The evidence certainly indicated that appellant and his cohorts were not merely throwing rocks at the cars themselves, but were deliberately aiming at the windshields and windows of the vehicles. The rocks they threw were not pebbles; they were of substantial size and thus dangerous instrumentalities.
The majority concludes, and I agree, that from those facts the jury could legitimately conclude that appellant and his exuberant cohorts entertained a specific intent to inflict serious injuries on some persons. But on whom? Assuming the miscreants could not see the people who were behind the windshields and the windows at which they were hurling stones, they had to be aware that each vehicle contained a driver, seated where he or she was extremely likely to be seriously injured by a rock thrown at the windshield or a window. Since there is a reasonable presumption or inference that one intends the natural and foreseeable consequences of his actions, it follows that the jury could infer that appellant entertained the specific intent to inflict serious and permanently disabling injuries on *703the one known occupant of each vehicle, its driver. Of course, the jury could also infer from the evidence that appellant and the other rock hurlers were acting out of a more general evil design, “the dictate of a wicked, depraved, and malignant heart; ‘un disposition a faire un male chose,’ ” as Blackstone described criminal malice prepense or malitia praecogitata.1 As pointed out by Judge Moylan, writing for this Court in Smith v. State, 41 Md. App. 277, 305, 398 A.2d 426 (1979), that sort of general malicious disposition to do an evil thing is not the specific intent required for guilt of this particular offense. Since the question is one of sufficiency of the evidence, we need not speculate which of the two inferences as to intent strike us as being more probable. Specific intent to disable the driver of each targeted vehicle was a reasonable permitted inference; that is enough to submit the issue to the jury.
The convictions for aggravated assault upon some of the passengers in the assailed vehicles present a considerably different problem, however. And it is with respect to those convictions that I feel compelled to dissent.
The majority refers to certain testimony from which it concludes that the rock throwers may have been able to see that the targeted vehicles carried one or more passengers in addition to the drivers. From testimony to the effect that occupants of some of the targeted vehicles were able to see their assailants quite well and that several of the vehicles were traveling in rather close proximity to each other, the majority concludes that an inference may be drawn that there was sufficient illumination to enable the assailants to see that there were passengers in the vehicles. The next step is the conclusion that if the jury could infer that appellant was aware that some cars contained one or more passengers in addition to the driver it could follow that inference up with an inference of specific intent to disable the passengers because permanently disabling injuries to the passengers would be the natural and foreseeable conse*704quences of appellant’s conduct. In short, affirmance of the conviction for aggravated assaults upon the passengers requires the drawing of sequential inferences, the second inference being entirely dependent on the first.
It has been frequently stated that it is impermissible to “pile inference upon inference”; that a fact desired to be used circumstantially must itself be established by testimonial evidence rather than by inference. We specifically rejected that adage in Finke v. State, 56 Md.App. 450, 477-78, 468 A.2d 353 (1983), pointing out that it had been impliedly rejected in Pressley v. State, 295 Md. 143, 454 A.2d 347 (1983), and Metz v. State, 9 Md.App. 15, 262 A.2d 331 (1970); citing 1 Wigmore on Evidence § 41 (3rd Ed. 1940), which flatly states that “circumstantial evidence may be proved by the same kind”; and quoting Maxey, J. in Neely v. Provident Life & Acc. Ins. Co., 322 Pa. 417,185 A. 784 (1936):
When jurors in their deliberation arrive at a process of reasoning at an acceptable inference of fact, they have a right to add such fact to any previous facts found by them and proceed by ratiocination from such fact or facts to additional inferences of . fact and then proceed still further by like process until they arrive at the ultimate conclusion on the issue trying.
As we explained in Finke:
Thus, if the jury finds from direct evidence the existence of facts A, B and C and can reasonably infer the existence of fact D therefrom, there is no logical reason why it may not then add fact D to its pool of findings and from the combination of facts A, B, C and D infer fact E.
56 Md.App. at 478, 468 A.2d 353.
The problem with the majority opinion in this case is that when the inferred fact of appellant’s awareness of the presence of one or more passengers in a particular vehicle is added to the other facts established by the evidence, no reasonable inference of the final factum probandum, a specific intent to injure a specific person — can be drawn.
*705Sometime between 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning, appellant hurled a large rock at the windshield of a rapidly approaching car on an interstate highway. If, as it is reasonable to infer, he could not see whether the car had any occupant other than the driver, it is not unreasonable to infer that he intended to injure the driver. But if the trier of fact infers that appellant could discern the presence of other persons in the car, then he was hurling a rock at a group of people. It is still reasonable to infer that he had an intention to inflict serious bodily injuries. But upon whom? There can be no rational inference of a specific intent to injure one particular individual in the group, only a generalized malevolence, a depraved heart, aimed at a group of people and not a specific person. As the majority opinion states, “[I]t is permissible to infer that the one throwing the rocks did so with the intent to injure whoever was inside [the vehicle].” The statutory crime of assault with intent to maim, disfigure, or disable, however, requires proof of an assault upon or battery of a person with the specific intent to cause a specific type of harm to that person. Throwing rocks at a group of people with the realization, expectation, or even hope that one or more of them may be severely injured is a serious “depraved heart” offense that may be fittingly and severely punished as a common law assault or battery, but it is not a violation of art. 27, § 386.

. Blackstone, Commentaries, 198-99.