Legal Updates

State v. Johnson
Arizona Court of Appeals, Div. 1, 6/17/03

Johnson fired one round from his rifle, hitting a police officer. There were numerous bystanders in the line of fire at the time Johnson shot the officer. Johnson was convicted aggravated assault on the officer and five counts of aggravated assault on the bystanders. The theory for convicting Johnson for the assault on the bystanders is that his intent to shoot the officer was transferred to the bystanders pursuant to A.R.S. § 13-203(B).

The Court of Appeals reversed the convictions of aggravated assault on the bystanders. The Court held that although “transferred intent” is a viable theory, it cannot apply in this case. The transferred intent theory works if the result on the intended victim of the perpetrator’s act is different than the intended result or if the victim is different than the intended victim. In this case, Johnson intended to shoot the police officer and that is what he did. There was no unintended result or victim. In addition, there is no evidence that Johnson intentionally put bystanders in apprehension of physical injury. While he might have known that discharging a firearm in the vicinity of people would put those people in fear, but knowingly falls short of the mental state of intentionally necessary to convict Johnson of aggravated assault on the bystanders.

The court went on to say that if Johnson had fired more than one round at the officer and hit the officer and one or more bystanders, transferred intent would apply. Or if Johnson had fired only one round and that round hit the officer and also hit one or more bystanders, transferred intent would apply. The court seemed to indicate that if there was evidence that Johnson intended to scare the officer, then transferred intent may have applied to the bystanders. However, there was no such evidence in the record.

COMMENT: It would have been better if the prosecutor had charged Johnson with reckless endangerment with a firearm as to the bystanders.

Source: Chandler PD Legal Unit