Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: legality of conviction

Not enough facts for a solid answer, but if you are saying the second person was an unknown unintended victim that was injured from a single act, the answer is could be...old adage..intent follows the bullet...as to whether there was sufficient evidence for a conviction? Sorry, I can't know without the trial transcript.

DJM

Re: legality of conviction

Your question would be eaiser to answer if you included the Penal Code sections that you were convicted of committing.

However, if person "A" shoots at person "B", but acutally hits person "C". Person "A" can legally be convicted of two different firearm offenses even though he only shot his gun one time. The charges related to person "B" will be slightly different than the charges related to person "C".

Re: legality of conviction

Yes, if the second person was likely to have been seriously harmed by the discharge of the gun toward the intended person (i.e. if the weapon was a shotgun and the second person was standing close to the target).

That the second person wasn't the intended victim is unimportant. Imagine that the defendant put a powerful bomb in an office building in order to kill a specific person, and that the bomb didn't go off. Should he be charged with attempting to murder just the one person even though many likely would have been killed if his plan had succeeded? The same logic applies in the shotgun scenario I described above.

Re: legality of conviction

"Legal"? Of course. Wrong question; it should be: 'will the facts support the conviction?' Answer: Depends. Get a good attorney or face prison time.