Garrett v. State, 394 Md. 217

Summary

The Maryland Court of Appeals held that a transferred-intent instruction was erroneous in a prosecution for attempted first-degree murder. Because the jury was not instructed on concurrent intent, the intermediate appellate court should have applied plain-error review rather than affirming the convictions under that alternative theory. The court reversed the attempted-murder convictions and remanded for a new trial on those counts.

Holdings

1. Transferred intent is inapplicable to inchoate crimes such as attempted murder. When a defendant intends to kill a specific victim but instead wounds an unintended victim without killing either person, the defendant may be convicted only of attempted murder of the intended victim; transferred intent does not apply to the attempted murder of the unintended victim.
2. The Court of Special Appeals abused its discretion by refusing to conduct plain-error review of the erroneous transferred-intent instruction.
3. The attempted first-degree murder convictions could not be affirmed on the alternative theory of concurrent intent because that theory was introduced for the first time on appeal and was not presented to or submitted to the jury.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the Court of Special Appeals abused its discretion by refusing to exercise plain-error review of an unobjected-to transferred-intent jury instruction.
2. Whether the transferred-intent instruction was plain error when applied to attempted first-degree murder charges involving unintended victims who were wounded but not killed.
3. Whether the attempted-murder convictions could be affirmed on appeal under the concurrent-intent theory when the jury had not been instructed on that theory.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded