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.
1 Two years later, the 10-year-old was sentenced to a residential treatment facility and intensive probation until 18 years of age.  Eric Smith: Eric Smith was 13 years old when he sexually abused and murdered four-year-old Derrick Robie on August 2, 1993 in Steuben County, New York.