Intent is a mental attitude with which an individual acts, and therefore it cannot ordinarily be directly proved but must be inferred from surrounding facts and circumstances. Intent refers only to the state of mind with which the act is done or omitted. It differs from motive, which is what prompts a person to act or to fail to act.
Derrick Todd Lee has been sentenced to death for the first degree murder of LSU grad student Charlotte Murray Pace. It took the jury that convicted Lee for Pace's murder 93 minutes to unanimously decide Lee's fate. Lee is now at Angola State Penitentiary.
The jury convicted Avery of first-degree intentional homicide and being a felon in possession of a firearm and sentenced to life in prison. Two years before Halbach died, Avery was released from prison after serving 18 years for a Manitowoc County rape that DNA analysis showed he did not commit.