 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
State v. Burns11/8/1999
should have been instructed. Furthermore, based on the language of the criminal responsibility statute, Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-11-403 (1997), the language of the defendant's indictment, and the facts that developed at trial, the defendant argues that solicitation to commit a felony was also a lesser-included offense that merited instruction. We agree that both facilitation and solicitation were lesser-included offenses of criminal responsibility for first-degree murder as charged in the defendant's indictment. We find error, however, only as to the failure to charge solicitation.
An understanding of the development of the law related to lesser-included offense instructions is necessary to our analysis of this issue. In Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625 (1980), the United States Supreme Court succinctly summarized the value and purpose of lesser-included offense instructions.
At common law the jury was permitted to find the defendant guilty of any lesser offense necessarily included in the offense charged. This rule originally developed as an aid to the prosecution in cases in which the proof failed to establish some element of the crime charged. But it has long been recognized that it can also be beneficial to the defendant because it affords the jury a less drastic alternative than the choice between conviction of the offense charged and acquittal. . . . roviding the jury with the "third option" of convicting on a lesser included offense ensures that the jury will accord the defendant the full benefit of the reasonable-doubt standard.
Id. at 633-34 (citations and footnotes omitted).
A trial court's duty to charge juries as to the law of each offense "included" in an indictment has been statutorily mandated in this State for some time. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-18-110 (1997) ("section 110"). We recently interpreted this provision to mean that "a trial court must instruct the jury on all lesser-included offenses if the evidence introduced at trial is legally sufficient to support a conviction for the lesser offense." State v. Langford, 994 S.W.2d 126, 128 (Tenn. 1999) (citing State v. Bolden, 979 S.W.2d 587, 593 (Tenn. 1998)); see also Tenn. R. Crim. P. 31(c) ("The defendant may be found guilty of an offense necessarily included in the offense charged . . . ."). This mandate to charge lesser-included offenses applies whether or not a defendant requests such an instruction.
In defining a lesser-included offense, this Court described an offense as "necessarily included in another if the elements of the greater offense, as those elements are set forth in the indictment, include, but are not congruent with, all the elements of the lesser." Howard v. State, 578 S.W.2d 83, 85 (Tenn. 1979). This definition followed a statutory elements approach, wherein the determination of whether an offense was included in another for purposes of jury instruction involved a strict comparison between the statutory elements of the offense charged in the indictment with the elements of the lesser offense at issue. Under this approach, an offense is not "necessarily included" in another unless the elements of the lesser offense are a subset of the elements of the charged offense. See Schmuck v. United States, 489 U.S. 705, 716 (1989). In other words, the lesser offense may not require proof of any element not included in the greater offense as charged in the indictment.
The definition of lesser-included offenses was briefly expanded to include lesser "grades" or "classes" of offenses. See State v. Trusty, 919 S.W.2d 305 (Tenn. 1996). This expansion was based on the perception that, under a strict application of the lesser-included offense doctrine espoused in Howard, some of
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Tennessee DUI Attorneys
DUI Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|