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Court of Appeals of Maryland - 343 Md. 97, 680 A.2d 512
Tags: Criminal law, Attempt
tl;dr:
Smallwood, an HIV-positive man, was convicted of attempted murder because he had unprotected sex with his victims, and he disagreed with the verdict, arguing that being HIV-positive and having unprotected sex didn't mean he was trying to kill anyone.Video Summary
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Dwight Ralph Smallwood was convicted of attempted second-degree murder and assault with intent to murder for sexually assaulting his victims during three separate armed robberies. He appealed, arguing that his HIV-positive status is not enough to infer an intent to kill. The State argued that Smallwood's HIV-positive status is equivalent to a deadly weapon, and engaging in unprotected sex is like firing a loaded firearm at the victim. The Court of Special Appeals upheld Smallwood's convictions, but the Court of Appeals granted certiorari to consider whether the trial court could properly conclude that Smallwood possessed the requisite intent to support his convictions. The court stated that to be convicted of attempted murder or assault with intent to murder, the perpetrator must have a specific intent to kill under circumstances that do not legally justify or excuse the killing or mitigate it to manslaughter. The use of a deadly weapon directed at a vital part of the human body can give rise to an evidentiary inference of an intent to murder. However, before inferring an intent to kill based solely on the defendant's exposure of a victim to a risk of death, it must be shown that the victim's death would have been a natural and probable result of the defendant's conduct.
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