Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 140.0

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Unit: $U76

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

95

Opinion of the Court

bama death penalty statute prohibited such instructions in
capital cases, id., at 628. As a result, Alabama juries had
only two options: to convict the defendant of the capital
crime, in which case they were required to impose the death
penalty,4 or to acquit.
Id., at 628–629. We found that the
denial of the third option of convicting the defendant of a
noncapital lesser included offense “diminish[ed] the reliabil-
ity of the guilt determination.”
Id., at 638. Without such
an option, if the jury believed that the defendant had com-
mitted some other serious offense, it might convict him of
the capital crime rather than acquit him altogether. See id.,
at 642–643. We therefore held that Alabama was “constitu-
tionally prohibited from withdrawing that option from the
jury in a capital case.” See id., at 638.

In Nebraska, instructions on offenses that have been de-
termined to be lesser included offenses of the charged crime
are available to defendants when the evidence supports
them, in capital and noncapital cases alike.5 Respondent’s
proposed instructions were refused because the Nebraska
Supreme Court has held for over 100 years, in both capital
and noncapital cases, that second-degree murder and man-
slaughter are not lesser included offenses of felony murder.
See, e. g., State v. Price, 252 Neb. 365, 372, 562 N. W. 2d 340,
346 (1997); State v. Masters, 246 Neb. 1018, 1025, 524 N. W.
2d 342, 348 (1994); State v. Ruyle, 234 Neb. 760, 773, 452
N. W. 2d 734, 742–743 (1990); State v. McDonald, 195 Neb.
625, 636–637, 240 N. W. 2d 8, 15 (1976); Thompson v. State,

4 If the jury imposed the death penalty, the trial judge had the authority
to reduce the sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of pa-
role. The jury, however, was not instructed to this effect; rather, it was
told that it was required to impose the death penalty if it found the defend-
ant guilty. See 447 U. S., at 639, n. 15.

5 We noted this fact in Beck in distinguishing Alabama’s scheme from
the practices in the rest of the States. See 447 U. S., at 636, n. 12 (citing
State v. Hegwood, 202 Neb. 379, 275 N. W. 2d 605 (1979)).