Bullet Meant for Another

The Defendant and a companion opened fire with a semiautomatic weapon in a public park, intending to kill a man with whom the Defendant had a dispute. They missed their intended target. Instead, one of the shots struck and killed an innocent bystander, and another wounded a second bystander. The Defendant was charged with the murder of the bystander, along with attempted murder and assault as to the others. He argued that because he never intended to kill the bystander — his intent was aimed only at the target — he could not be guilty of the bystander's murder. The Prosecution invoked the doctrine of transferred intent: the intent to kill the target 'transfers' to the unintended victim actually killed.