Virginia Lawyers Weekly VA Lawyers Weekly
Where a woman sitting in a car was struck and killed by one of four shots appellant fired down a city street without justification, the necessary malice to sustain a second-degree murder conviction is implied by appellant’s actions.
“The concept of implied malice is based on the notion that the defendant intentionally acts, even though he knows his actions are wrong and so inherently dangerous that they could result in death.
“Unlike express malice, implied malice does not require that a defendant have a deliberate intent to kill. Rather, it is the fact that the defendant ‘wilfully or purposefully, rather than negligently, embarked upon a course of wrongful conduct likely to cause death or great bodily harm.’ …
“[T]he record clearly supports a finding that [appellant] Watson- Scott engaged in an intentional ‘course of wrongful conduct likely to cause death or great bodily harm.’ … There can be no doubt that intentionally firing multiple shots from a handgun down a city street is unlawful. …
“Further, no justification for his actions can be gleaned from the record, nor does Watson-Scott offer any justification.
“It is patently obvious that firing multiple shots from a handgun in the middle of a populous city is the very definition of an action flowing from a ‘wicked and corrupt motive, done with an evil mind and purpose and wrongful intention, where the act has been attended with such circumstances as to carry in them the plain indication of a heart regardless of social duty and deliberately bent on mischief.’ …
“Accordingly, the evidence of Watson-Scott’s actions implied sufficient malice to support his conviction for second degree murder.”
Affirmed.
Watson-Scott v. Commonwealth. Record No. 190016 (Powell) Dec. 12, 2019 (COA). Catherine Elizabeth Lawler for Appellant, Elizabeth Kiernan Fitzgerald, Rachel Lynsie Yates for Appellee. VLW 019-6-095, 7 pp.
