Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 142.0

524US1

Unit: $U76

[09-06-00 18:29:27] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 524 U. S. 88 (1998)

97

Opinion of the Court

tution requires anything more. The Court of Appeals in
this case, however, required in effect that States create
lesser included offenses to all capital crimes, by requiring
that an instruction be given on some other offense––what
could be called a “lesser related offense”––when no lesser
included offense exists. Such a requirement is not only un-
precedented, but also unworkable. Under such a scheme,
there would be no basis for determining the offenses for
which instructions are warranted. The Court of Appeals
apparently would recognize a constitutional right to an in-
struction on any offense that bears a resemblance to the
charged crime and is supported by the evidence. Such an
afﬁrmative obligation is unquestionably a greater limitation
on a State’s prerogative to structure its criminal law than is
Beck’s rule that a State may not erect a capital-speciﬁc, arti-

(1997) (en banc) (comparing statutory elements of the lesser offense to
determine whether all of them are contained in the greater offense); Peo-
ple v. Beach, 429 Mich. 450, 462, 418 N. W. 2d 861, 866–867 (1988) (applying
the “cognate evidence” approach: a lesser included offense instruction may
be given even though all of the statutory elements of the lesser offense are
not contained in the greater offense, if the “overlapping elements relate to
the common purpose of the statutes” and the speciﬁc evidence adduced
would support an instruction on the cognate offense (internal quotation
marks and citation omitted)); State v. Curtis, 130 Idaho 522, 524, 944 P. 2d
119, 121–122 (1997) (court looks both to the statutory elements and to the
information to determine whether it “charges the accused with a crime
the proof of which necessarily includes proof of the acts that constitute
the lesser included offense”). Cf. Schmuck v. United States, 489 U. S. 705
(1989) (adopting statutory elements test for federal criminal law).

Since the time of respondent’s conviction, Nebraska has alternated be-
tween use of the statutory elements test and the cognate evidence test; it
currently employs the former. See State v. Williams, 243 Neb. 959, 963–
965, 503 N. W. 2d 561, 564–565 (1993) (readopting statutory elements test),
overruling State v. Garza, 236 Neb. 202, 207–208, 459 N. W. 2d 739, 743
(1990) (reafﬁrming cognate evidence test), disapproving State v. Lovelace,
212 Neb. 356, 359–360, 322 N. W. 2d 673, 674–675 (1982) (applying statutory
elements test).
It has nonetheless consistently reafﬁrmed its holding that
felony murder has no lesser included homicide offenses.