Goff, J.
Most everyone would agree that intentionally shooting at and killing two persons (one immediately after the other) amounts to two separate murders. Reasonable persons would also likely conclude that robbing a person and then brutally beating and injuring that person (all in the same encounter) amount to two separate criminal acts: robbery and aggravated battery. Other scenarios, however, are less clear. Is the baker who sells four loaves of bread on Sunday subject to four counts of violating the “blue law” or only one? Does the theft of a single package in which several articles of property belong to multiple persons amount to one offense or multiple offenses? Does every punch thrown upon a single victim amount to a separate act of battery? Are two pulls of the trigger one attempted murder or two? Does it matter if the defendant aimed at two victims rather than one? What if he had aimed at the same person but on different days and at different locations?
The answer to these questions depends on whether the applicable statute permits the division or fragmentation of a defendant’s criminal conduct into distinct “units of prosecution.” If the statute defines a separate offense for certain discrete acts (e.g., each loaf of bread sold or each victim harmed) within that course of conduct, the separate charges (and corresponding convictions) may stand. But if the statute fixes no separate penalty for each of these acts, and unless those acts are sufficiently distinct “in terms of time, place, [and] singleness of purpose,” then a court may impose only a single conviction.
The defendant here, during an escalating confrontation, fired five to six shots in rapid succession at two victims sitting in an adjacent vehicle, seriously injuring one of them. In these circumstances, may a court convict on one count of attempted murder (for the single act of shooting) or two (one for each victim)? While our attempted-murder statute contains no clear unit of prosecution, we find sufficient evidence of the defendant’s dual purpose in firing his weapon: intent to kill both victims. Accordingly, we hold that the defendant’s actions, despite their proximity in space and time, amount to two distinct, chargeable offenses.
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The thrust of the parties’ arguments focuses on Powell’s act of firing multiple shots at Travis’s car and whether his actions warrant separate attempted-murder convictions. Powell argues that double jeopardy prohibits his separate convictions based on his single act of shooting. The State, on the other hand, contends that, when separate victims are involved, there is no double jeopardy violation. Each pull of the trigger amounted to “separate acts” designed to kill each person, the State insists, and the fact that Powell “unleashed his violence at multiple people close in time and space does not make it a single crime.
We agree with the State that the separate victims here warrant Powell’s dual convictions, but the reasoning through which we reach that decision calls for careful explanation.
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Substantive double-jeopardy claims principally arise in one of two situations: (1) when a single criminal act or transaction violates multiple statutes with common elements, or (2) when a single criminal act or transaction violates a single statute and results in multiple injuries. Wadle v. State, — N.E.3d — (Ind. 2020) (slip op. at 22–23). Our decision today in Wadle implicates the former scenario; this case implicates the latter. The question here is not whether one offense is included in the other (attempted murder is clearly the same as attempted murder). See Hurst v. State, 464 N.E.2d 19, 21 (Ind. Ct. App. 1984). Instead, we ask whether “the same act may be twice punished” as “two counts of the same offense.” See Kelly v. State, 527 N.E.2d 1148, 1154 (Ind. Ct. App. 1988), aff’d, 539 N.E.2d 25, 26 (Ind. 1989).
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In resolving a claim of multiplicity, our task is to determine whether the statute permits punishment for a single course of criminal conduct or for certain discrete acts—the “successive, similar occurrences”—within that course of conduct. Id.; Taylor, 929 N.E.2d at 920. Put differently, we ask whether—and to what extent—the applicable statute permits the fragmentation of a defendant’s criminal act into distinct “units of prosecution.” 7 Peter Westen & Richard Drubel, Toward a General Theory of Double Jeopardy, 1978 Sup. Ct. Rev. 81, 111–12. See also Bell v. United States, 349 U.S. 81, 82–83 (1955) (the legislative branch is responsible for defining the proper “unit of prosecution”).
This inquiry involves a two-step process.
First, we review the text of the statute itself. If the statute, whether expressly or by judicial construction, indicates a unit of prosecution, then we follow the legislature’s guidance and our analysis is complete. See Hurst, 464 N.E.2d at 21 (whether “multiple offenses of the same statute are committed during a single transaction” depends “on the definition of the particular crime involved”). But if the statute is ambiguous, then we proceed to the second step of our analysis.
Under this second step, a court must determine whether the facts—as presented in the charging instrument and as adduced at trial—indicate a single offense or whether they indicate distinguishable offenses. To answer this question, we ask whether the defendant’s actions are “so compressed in terms of time, place, singleness of purpose, and continuity of action as to constitute a single transaction.” Walker v. State, 932 N.E.2d 733, 735 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010), cited with approval by Hines, 30 N.E.3d at 1219. If the defendant’s criminal acts are sufficiently distinct, then multiple convictions may stand; but if those acts are continuous and indistinguishable, a court may impose only a single conviction. Armstead v. State, 549 N.E.2d 400, 402 (Ind. Ct. App. 1990). Any doubt counsels “against turning a single transaction into multiple offenses.” Duncan v. State, 274 Ind. 457, 464, 412 N.E.2d 770, 775 (1980) (quoting Bell, 349 U.S. at 84).
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Applying our test to Powell’s multiplicity claim requires us to decide two things: (1) whether the attempted-murder statute contains a distinct unit of prosecution and, if not, (2) whether Powell’s firing of multiple shots indicate distinguishable offenses or whether those consecutive acts indicate a single, continuous offense.
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The [attempted murder] statute’s contemplation of a victim, whether actual or potential, suggests that attempted murder is a result-based crime: rather than simply showing the defendant intentionally committed criminal conduct that could have resulted in death, the State must show that the defendant intended for his conduct to produce such a result. As this Court has noted, the defendant’s “attempt” in attempted murder “must be to effect the proscribed result and not merely to engage in proscribed conduct.” Smith v. State, 459 N.E.2d 355, 358 (Ind. 1984) (emphasis added). See also Ramsey v. State, 723 N.E.2d 869, 871 (Ind. 2000) (same).
These alternative readings of our attempted-murder statute reveal equally legitimate ways of thinking about the statute’s unit of prosecution: either by conduct or by result. And when a statute permits more than one reasonable interpretation, we consider that statute ambiguous. Day v. State, 57 N.E.3d 809, 813 (Ind. 2016). So, under our test, unless the facts show that Powell’s multiple gunshots amounted to distinguishable offenses, we conclude that the statute permits the prosecution for only a single criminal offense. See Duncan, 274 Ind. at 464, 412 N.E.2d at 775–76 (applying rule of lenity).
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This step of our analysis requires us to decide whether Powell’s criminal acts amount to a single offense or whether they indicate several distinguishable offenses. To answer this question, we look to whether those acts are “so compressed in terms of time, place, singleness of purpose, and continuity of action as to constitute a single transaction.” Walker, 932 N.E.2d at 735.
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According to the State, each pull of Powell’s trigger amounted to “separate acts” designed to kill each person in Travis’s car. Appellee’s Br. at 22. And the fact that Powell “unleashed his violence at multiple people close in time and space,” the State insists, “does not make it a single crime.” Reply in Support of Trans. at 4. We disagree. Although Powell stands convicted of only two attempted murders (one for each victim), under the State’s theory, he could have faced “five or six” counts of attempted murder for each victim (one for each shot fired), potentially culminating in a 480-year sentence upon conviction of all twelve counts. See I.C. § 35-50-2-4(b) (2014) (specifying a maximum sentence of forty years for conviction of a Level 1 felony).13 For good reason, our courts have rejected such a theory. See Nunn, 695 N.E.2d at 125. See also Benson v. State, 73 N.E.3d 198, 203 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017) (holding that, where the defendant shot at an officer twice during a continuous ninety-second pursuit, the State could charge only a single count of attempted murder, not two).
Space and time, however, aren’t the only elements we factor into our analysis. For multiple criminal acts to be continuous and indistinguishable, Powell must also have committed those acts with a “singleness of purpose.” See Walker, 932 N.E.2d at 735. So long as there’s sufficient evidence he possessed the requisite mens rea to kill both victims by firing his weapon multiple times, both convictions may stand. See O’Connell v. State, 742 N.E.2d 943, 950 (Ind. 2001) (finding evidence that defendant, during a single transaction, fired two successive shots at two victims standing side-by-side sufficient to prove that he “harbored the specific intent to kill [them] both”).
Powell insists that the evidence supports only his conviction for the attempted murder of Travis. Because Travis was the only person with whom he had a beef, and because he had never met Davyn, Powell contends that his conviction for the attempted murder of Davyn lacks sufficient evidentiary support. Davyn, he insists, was simply an unfortunate bystander—an inadvertent victim caught in the line of fire. We disagree with Powell’s characterization of facts and circumstances surrounding his commission of the crimes.
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To be sure, this Court has cited the “drive-by shooting” as “the paradigm problematic attempted murder case.” Richeson v. State, 704 N.E.2d 1008, 1010 (Ind. 1998). In those situations, it’s “often unclear whether the defendant intended to murder or to batter, whether he knew of a high probability of death or a touching, or whether he simply recklessly disregarded either.” Id. But this isn’t a case in which the defendant fired blindly into a group of individuals. To the contrary, Powell directly engaged with his victims, both of whom sat facing him, only feet away, through an open car window. And as the conversation grew heated, Powell—with calculated deliberation—drew his weapon, loaded it, and fired at the car as it began pulling away—all without reciprocal provocation of violence.
Nor is this a case, as Powell insists, in which a defendant, “while intending to kill one person, mistakenly kills another through inadvertence, or bad aim.” See Appellant’s Br. at 15. In other words, Davyn did not simply “g[e]t in the way” as Powell shot at Travis. See Appellant’s Resp. to Trans. at 8. Rather, Powell sprayed the side of the Cadillac, firing multiple shots at close range, fully aware of the vehicle’s occupants. See Tr. Vol. III, pp. 88–92 (documenting the path of bullet holes along the side of the car). The prosecutor emphasized these facts in closing, urging the jury “to apply common sense and decide what [Powell] was thinking” when, knowing that Davyn and Travis were inside the car, he fired “indiscriminately” at them both. Id. 230–31.
Based on this evidence and these arguments, along with the separate attempted-murder charges, the jury could have reasonably inferred that Powell intended to kill both Travis and Davyn. Indeed, if “intent to kill may be inferred from the deliberate use of a deadly weapon in a manner likely to cause death or serious injury,” then there’s no issue with the jury inferring Powell’s intent to kill Davyn and intent to kill Travis by directly “firing a gun in the[ir] direction.” See Henley v. State, 881 N.E.2d 639, 652 (Ind. 2008).
Conclusion
In sum, we hold that, while our attempted-murder statute contains no clear unit of prosecution, the multiple shots Powell fired—despite their proximity in space and time—amount to two chargeable offenses based on his dual purpose of intent to kill both Travis and Davyn. We thus affirm the trial court and order the reinstatement of Powell’s attempted-murder conviction for Davyn.
Affirmed.
Rush, C.J., and David, Massa, and Slaughter, JJ., concur.