West Virginia Homicide Jury Instructions Project Professor James R. Elkins & Students at the West Virginia University College of Law [Spring][2006]

Permissible Inference

Current Jury Instruction: The court instructs the jury that there is a permissible inference of fact that a person intends that which he or she does or which is the immediate and necessary consequence of his or her act. [Permissible Inference]

Revised Jury Instruction: Intention is largely a matter of inference. You may infer that the defendant intends to do what [he] [she] does, and that [he] [she] intends that which is the immediate and necessary consequences of [his] [her] acts.

Relevant Cases:

1. The jury may infer that a person intends to do that which he does, which is the natural and necessary consequence of his act. State v. Wright, 249 S.E.2d 519 (1978).

2. Courts expressly and impliedly have differentiated instructions that permit a jury to infer intent, and those which irrebuttably presume it. State v. Wright, 249 S.E.2d 519 (1978).

3. Intent can be inferred by a jury from the defendant’s use of a deadly weapon under circumstances which the jury did not believe afforded the defendant excuse, justification, or provocation for his conduct. State v. Starkey, 244 S.E.2d 219 (1978).

4. Proof of intent in criminal cases can be developed from the circumstances surrounding the crime. The type of intent required to be proved depends on the degree of murder. State v. Starkey, 244 S.E.2d 219 (1978).

5. The requisite intent required to commit second degree murder can be inferred from the natural and probable consequences from the defendant’s actions or from the intentional use of a deadly weapon by the defendant upon the deceased. A natural and probable consequence is one that a reasonable person would know is likely to happen if nothing unusual intervenes considering all of the circumstances established by the evidence. State v. Morrison, 49 W.Va. 210; 38 S.E. 481 (1901); State v. Mullins, 193 W. Va. 315; 456 S.E. 2d 42 (1995).

Home