Common law treats cases of misfire in which the actor has a valid defence in relation to either the intended victim or the victim actually harmed as particular instances of ‘transferred malice’. It is said that just as the actor’s intention is fictitiously ‘transferred’ from the intended victim to the victim harmed so are defences, meaning that any—and only—defences that would have been available to the actor had he harmed the intended victim will be granted to him with regard to the harm caused to the actual victim. I argue that the blanket solution of transferring defences ‘as is’, without accounting for their differing rationales and their specific implications for cases of misfire, produces bad reasoning and oversimplified decisions—and should therefore be substituted by a separate examination of the actor’s liability with respect to each victim and each type of defence. However, I reject the more robust argument that commentators have made, that a conclusion against transferring defences entails a conclusion against transferred malice in general. I argue that the underlying logic of transferred malice—i.e., treating victims of equivalent wrongs alike—stays intact even if we excise from it the treatment of cross-victim defences.

普通法处理的失火案件中，行为人对预期的受害者或作为“移送恶意”的特定实例而实际受到伤害的受害者具有有效的辩护。有人说，正如演员的意图是从拟定的受害者虚构地“转移”到受害的受害者一样，防御也是一样，这意味着，如果行为人伤害了拟定的受害者，本来可以使用的任何唯一防御措施就是就对实际受害者造成的伤害向他授予的权利。我认为，“按原样”转移辩护的一揽子解决方案没有考虑到辩护理由的不同以及对失火案件的具体影响，会产生错误的推理和过于简单的决定，因此应单独检查行为者对每个受害者和每种辩护的责任。但是，我拒绝评论员提出的更为有力的论点，即反对转移辩护的结论必然包含反对转移恶意的结论。我认为，即使我们从中转移交叉受害者的辩护，也可以保持转移性恶意的基本逻辑（即，平等对待同样的受害者）。