Firing Into an Occupied House at Night Is Intent to Kill by Foresight ยิงปืนขนาด .45 เข้าไปในบ้านที่มีคนอยู่ในเวลากลางคืนหลังไล่ตามผู้เสียหาย มิใช่การยิงขู่ แม้กระสุนไม่ถูกผู้เสียหายก็ถือว่าเล็งเห็นผลของการกระทำ เป็นความผิดฐานพยายามฆ่า

SUPREME COURT DECISION No. 5592/2533
Year: 1990 (B.E. 2533)
Relevant Code Sections: Criminal, Section(s) 59, 80, 288

SUMMARY
The defendant's party and the complainant's had quarrelled earlier that night. The defendant brought his own group back, chased the complainant to the front of his house and fired a .45 into it. Nobody was hit. One round went through the upper wall of a bedroom, a metre from a young woman who had opened the window to look out, and a second struck below the window sill. The trial court convicted of attempted murder and imposed ten years; the Court of Appeal reversed and dismissed the charge; the prosecution appealed. The Supreme Court rejected the reading that these were shots fired to frighten. A man who has followed his quarry to the house at that hour knows people are sleeping in it, and the placement of the rounds shows bad marksmanship rather than a warning. On that footing the death of an occupant was a consequence the defendant must have foreseen, and the trial court's judgment was restored.

FACTS OF THE CASE
The defendant fired a weapon into the victim's home at night. Although the bullets did not strike the victim, one landed approximately 1 meter from the victim and another struck beneath a window.

COURT'S HOLDING
The Supreme Court applied the doctrine of constructive intent (เจตนาเล็งเห็นผล) under Section 59, reasoning that a reasonable person would foresee that firing into an occupied home at night would endanger its inhabitants. This landmark case established the standard for inferring intent to kill from the circumstances of the act.

LEGAL ANALYSIS
The inference here is built on what a reasonable person knows about houses at night rather than on anything the defendant said. He pursued the complainant to the front of the house and fired a .45 into it, and the Court reasoned that anyone knows a dwelling at that hour contains people sleeping inside.

The physical evidence tied it down: the bullet struck the upper interior wall, which is consistent with a shot fired into the living space rather than at the structure. Firing a heavy-calibre weapon into an occupied dwelling is intent to kill by foreseeability whether or not the shooter had a particular occupant in mind.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
A warning shot account is tested against where the rounds went, not against what the defendant says he meant. Here he had chased his quarry to the house and fired a .45 into it at night; one round passed through the wall of an upstairs bedroom a metre from a woman who had opened the window to look out, and a second struck below the sill. The Court read that as poor marksmanship rather than as shots aimed to frighten, and foresight of death followed. Anyone advancing that account should expect the trajectory and the strike positions to decide it, and should note that the Court of Appeal had acquitted and was reversed on exactly this reasoning.

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Note: This is an English-language summary of the Thai original judgment.
For the authoritative Thai text, please refer to the Thai version above
or visit deka.supremecourt.or.th.