The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law
Chapter 8: What Have You Done?
Page 10: Transferred Intent and Guild

That’s called “transferred intent.” Joe’s intent to hurt Simon gets counted towards his hurting Mamie.

In this case, the statute plainly says that it’s still Assault One if the harm happened to a third person. But even if it hadn’t said so, Joe is still probably going to be guilty.

All in all, actus reus is pretty much a matter of common sense. It’s the thing the law says “DON’T DO.”

Person swimming beyond a “No Swimming” sign.

But what if you attempted to do it, with all the mens rea required, but didn’t succeed?

We’ll talk about that next time in Part 9, “At Least You Tried”