Dlugash v. New York

Joseph Bush, Melvin Dlugash (defendant), and Michael Geller went out drinking together. Throughout the evening, Bush and Geller fought about a money matter. Eventually, Bush shot Geller in the chest three times. Several minutes later, Dlugash shot Geller in the face five times. Dlugash claimed that, at the time he fired, he believed (1) Geller was already dead and (2) Bush would kill him too if he did not shoot Geller’s body. Dlugash and Bush were tried separately for Geller’s murder in state court. Dlugash was charged with both murder and attempted murder. At Dlugash’s trial, Dlugash’s own statements were the only evidence of what happened to Geller. Medical experts for both sides testified that they could not say with certainty whether Geller was alive when Dlugash shot him. The trial court instructed the jury that if it found Geller was alive when Dlugash shot him, it could presume that Dlugash intended to kill Geller and find Dlugash guilty of murder. If Geller was already dead at that point, Dlugash was guilty of attempted murder only if the evidence showed that he actually (and mistakenly) believed that Geller was still alive and intended to kill him. The jury found Dlugash guilty of murder. Dlugash appealed. New York’s appellate division dismissed the murder charge on the grounds that the prosecution had not presented any evidence that Geller was actually alive when Dlugash shot him, so the jury’s murder finding had no valid basis. The prosecution appealed to New York’s highest court, which found that even if the prosecution had not presented any evidence that Geller was actually alive when Dlugash fired, it had presented enough evidence for the jury to find that Dlugash believed Geller was alive. The court then reasoned that because the jury had found an intent to murder, this intent transferred to the crime of attempt and converted Dlugash’s murder conviction to a conviction for attempted murder. Dlugash filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus with a federal district court. Dlugash argued that the attempted-murder conviction violated his federal constitutional right to due process because it was based on either a presumption or an inference of intent that had no evidentiary basis. The federal court considered the petition.