State v. Williams
| Decision Date | 15 June 2022 |
| Docket Number | 5918 |
| Parties | The State, Respondent, v. Devonta Edward Williams, Appellant |
| Court | South Carolina Court of Appeals |
Heard March 15, 2022
Appeal From Horry County Steven H. John, Circuit Court Judge
Appellate Defender Joanna Katherine Delany, of Columbia, for Appellant.
Attorney General Alan McCrory Wilson, Deputy Attorney General Donald J. Zelenka, Senior Assistant Deputy Attorney General Melody Jane Brown, and Assistant Attorney General Tommy Evans, Jr., all of Columbia; and Solicitor Jimmy A Richardson, II, of Conway, for Respondent.
This case calls on us to again address the specific intent crime of attempted murder. Devonta Edward Williams argues the trial court should have directed a verdict of acquittal because he sees no evidence he intended to kill the particular individual named in one of his attempted murder indictments. The trial court sent the case to the jury, relying on transferred intent.
The trial court could not have foreseen that this court would subsequently hold transferred intent does not apply to attempted murder. Even so, we are convinced there was evidence at the directed verdict stage from which a jury could find Williams intended to kill the individual in question because the individual was within the zone of danger created by Williams' conduct. For that reason, we affirm.
An Horry County grand jury indicted Williams for the murder of one man and the attempted murder of two others. Williams proceeded to a jury trial. This appeal concerns his conviction for the attempted murder of Letrevias Knox.
Witnesses testified Williams approached a group of approximately eight people who were gathered outdoors, asked someone in the group "where's my money," and began shooting. Knox was in the group. He said he was shot in the shoulder and the back of a leg as he ran away. Multiple witnesses said Williams was the only person they saw with a gun during the incident.
Williams moved for a directed verdict on all charges. As relevant here, Williams argued the State did not present evidence he deliberately intended to shoot Knox. For his part, Knox had already testified that he did not know who shot him or why he was shot.
The State argued Williams' intent to injure other people could be firmly established by the testimony that Williams purposefully approached the scene, demanded money, opened fire, and was the only person seen with a gun. The State also argued that under transferred intent, "malice follows the bullet." As already noted, the trial court cited transferred intent in denying the directed verdict motion.
Williams testified immediately after his directed verdict motions were denied. He admitted approaching the group of people but claimed he had no specific purpose for being there. He said he did not mention anything about money; instead, he said he asked about his moped. Williams claimed he saw one person-Brandon Wells- move as though he was reaching for a gun and that Wells had a reputation for carrying weapons. Williams said he heard gunshots and ran behind a car before he could pull out his own gun.
Williams renewed his directed verdict motions after his testimony. The trial court denied them.
The trial court charged the jury on transferred intent. Williams did not object. The jury found Williams guilty as indicted. The trial court sentenced him to concurrent terms of thirty-five years' imprisonment for murder and thirty years' imprisonment for both counts of attempted murder.
Whether the trial court erred in denying a directed verdict of acquittal on the charge Williams attempted to murder Knox.
"On appeal from the denial of a directed verdict, this [c]ourt views the evidence and all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the State." State v. Pearson 415 S.C. 463, 470, 783 S.E.2d 802, 806 (2016) (quoting State v. Butler, 407 S.C. 376, 381, 755 S.E.2d 457, 460 (2014)). "If the [S]tate has presented 'any direct evidence or any substantial circumstantial evidence reasonably tending to prove the guilt of the accused,' this [c]ourt must affirm the trial court's decision to submit the case to the jury." State v. Hepburn, 406 S.C. 416, 429, 753 S.E.2d 402, 409 (2013) (quoting State v. Cherry, 361 S.C. 588, 593-94, 606 S.E.2d 475, 478 (2004)). "The case should be submitted to the jury if there is any substantial evidence [that] reasonably tends to prove the guilt of the accused, or from which his guilt may be fairly or logically deduced." State v. Robinson, 310 S.C. 535, 538, 426 S.E.2d 317, 319 (1992).
Over the last few years, this court and our supreme court have written several cases about attempted murder. This particular crime often seems to present confusing issues. First, we mention State v. King, which held attempted murder is a specific intent crime, in part because attempt criminalizes intent and "it is logically impossible to attempt an unintended result." 422 S.C. 47, 56, 810 S.E.2d 18, 23 (2017) (quoting 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law Substantive Principles § 156, at 221-22 (2016)). Also relevant is State v. Gerald Rudell Williams, which vacated a decision from this court that found transferred intent applied to attempted murder. 427 S.C. 148, 158, 829 S.E.2d 702, 707 (2019).
Two of this court's decisions stand for the proposition that transferred intent does not apply to attempted murder. We read these cases as saying that shifting the defendant's intent to kill from the targeted victim to an injured bystander does not satisfy the specific intent for attempted murder; though the defendant had the specific intent to kill, he did not have the specific intent to kill the bystander. See State v. Geter, 434 S.C. 557, 568, 864 S.E.2d 569, 575 (Ct. App. 2021); State v. James Caleb Williams, 435 S.C. 288, 299, 867 S.E.2d 430, 436 (Ct. App. 2021). As of now, there are requests in both cases for supreme court review.
We think an illustration shows why the recent decisions from this court are correct in reasoning that transferred intent does not apply to attempted murder. Suppose Peter fires a single shot at Paul in an attempt to kill him. The bullet misses Paul and hits and injures Mary instead. As far as attempted murder is concerned, Peter attempted to murder Paul, not Mary. After all, there is no evidence Peter intended to kill Mary. His intent was to kill Paul.
Some might argue it makes sense to "transfer" the intended victim status from Paul to Mary. We believe the logic of King rejects this reasoning. King noted it is not possible to specifically intend an unintended result. Peter's specific intent was to kill Paul, not Mary.
Some might argue it is proper to charge attempted murder of both Paul and Mary. We think not. Transferred intent "makes a whole crime out of two halves," Gerald Rudell Williams, 427 S.C. at 150, 829 S.E.2d at 702-03-if Mary died, transferred intent would allow Peter's criminal intent to injure Paul to join with his act of injuring Mary and make Peter guilty of Mary's murder. We are not aware of authority supporting the view that transferred intent is a multiplier for increasing liability when an attempted crime is not successful. It would be illogical to say Peter fired a single shot intending to kill both Paul and Mary.
Now consider an entirely different hypothetical. This one comes to us from the Supreme Court of California in People v Bland, 48 P.3d 1107 (Cal. 2002). Suppose a villain intends to kill a particular target. The criminal sees the target standing in a group of people, and in an effort to ensure the target's death, the villain shoots multiple times in the group's direction. Bland explains that when the villain escalated his attack from a single bullet aimed at the target to a hail of bullets into the group, a factfinder could reasonably infer that the villain concurrently intended to kill multiple people in the immediate vicinity. Id. at 1118. To be clear, this is not...
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