On February 15, 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt was giving a speech in Miami when a man named Guiseppe Zangara pointed a pistol at the president-elect. Mrs. Lillian Cross, a bystander, shoved the gunman’s pistol arm away, likely saving the life of the president-elect. But while Guiseppe Zangara didn’t succeed in killing FDR, he did hit five other people in the crowd that day, including Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who later died of his injuries.
Since Zangara clearly intended to kill Roosevelt, but instead killed someone else, should we consider that killing intentional? In other words, should Cermak’s death be ruled murder or manslaughter? The United States holds the legal doctrine of transferred intent and, indeed, the court tried Zangara for murder. He was convicted and executed for the crime.
Would the rabbis of the Talmud have convicted Zangara as well? Do the rabbis also hold by the doctrine of transferred intent? That’s the topic under discussion on today’s daf. The mishnah states:
He intended to kill an animal and he killed a person, to kill a gentile and he killed a Jew, to kill non-viable newborns and he killed a viable person — he is exempt.
The mishnah notes different kinds of living beings whose deaths carry different degrees of rabbinic liability. (This hierarchy of valuation is worth unpacking in its own right, but given space limits here, let’s focus in on the question of transferred intent.) According to the anonymous author of this mishnah, if one attempted to kill a being with a lower degree of rabbinic liability, and accidentally killed a being with a higher degree of rabbinic liability, one is exempt from capital punishment.
The mishnah then continues by describing a number of scenarios in which this anonymous author thinks one would still be exempt: If someone attempted to kill another by striking them on the heart, for example, but accidentally struck them on the groin, and the person still died, they are exempt because a groin injury is usually not fatal. The anonymous voice then shifts to discuss when someone’s transferred intent would actually make them liable for murder:
But if one intended to strike another on his loins, and it was enough to kill him on his loins, and it landed on his heart, and he died, the assailant is liable. If one intended to strike an adult and the blow was enough to kill the adult, and it landed on a minor and he died, the assailant is liable.
According to the anonymous opinion in the mishnah, if someone intended to kill a person, and ended up killing a different person from that same category, even if it isn’t the one they intended to kill, they are liable for murder. The author of this mishnah would have executed Zangara.
But the mishnah preserves a second opinion:
Rabbi Shimon says: Even if one intended to kill this one and he killed that one, he is exempt.
Why does Rabbi Shimon insist that murder which lands on an unintended target is not murder? The Talmud turns to a biblical prooftext:
The verse states: “But if there will be a man who hates his neighbor, and he lies in wait for him and rises up against him, and strikes him mortally and he dies” (Deuteronomy 19:11) — until he intends to him (specifically.)
On the one hand, Rabbi Shimon is clearly and understandably reluctant to put someone to death for murder. We’ve seen that impulse many times in this tractate. On the other hand, Rabbi Shimon’s position feels intuitively unjust — a person died because another person intended to kill. Surely, then, there is reason to punish!
While Rabbi Shimon’s position might read as extreme or nonsensical to us, Maimonides actually codifies it as the prevailing position in the Mishnah Torah (Murderer and the Preservation of Life 4:1). Maimonides does not apply a doctrine of transferred intent to capital murder. According to Maimonides’ reading of the Talmud, then, if the United States was subject to rabbinic law, and all parties were Jews, Zangara should have gone free.
Read all of Sanhedrin 79 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on March 6, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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