Opinion ID: 658551
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Instruction on Lesser Included Offenses

Text: 29 Petitioner next claims that he was deprived of due process because the trial judge refused to instruct the jury on the lesser included offenses of first and second degree manslaughter with respect to the Littman murder. Petitioner argued to the trial court that the tenuous nature of the evidence regarding his role in the Littman murder justified a jury finding that he did not have the specific intent to commit murder, and that the manslaughter charge was therefore appropriate. See State v. Herring, 210 Conn. at 104-05, 554 A.2d at 699-700. He claimed that Glenda Hightower's testimony regarding petitioner's statement that Littman had to go could have been interpreted by the jury as meaning only that Littman has got to leave, and that Graylon Shannon's testimony indicated that petitioner confessed not to killing Littman, but only to helping dispose of his body. The trial court rejected petitioner's argument and found that a manslaughter instruction was not warranted by the evidence. 30 On appeal, petitioner offers a different justification for the manslaughter instruction. He now argues that the jury could have concluded from the evidence that Littman was killed during a sudden violent altercation in which the intent necessary for a murder conviction had been lacking. However, petitioner did not make this argument to the state trial court. Under Connecticut law, an appeals court should not review a justification for a lesser included offense that was not raised at trial. Id. The Connecticut Supreme Court, in upholding the trial court's determination that the evidence on intent was not sufficiently disputed to warrant the manslaughter instruction, explicitly declined to address any evidentiary grounds not raised in the trial court. Id. at 105, 554 A.2d at 699-700. Therefore, petitioner's claim based on the altercation evidence was procedurally defaulted by his failure to raise it in state court, and, as no cause has been offered to justify the default, we decline to address it on this appeal. See Smith v. Murray, 477 U.S. 527, 533, 106 S.Ct. 2661, 2666, 91 L.Ed.2d 434 (1986).