Opinion ID: 1896884
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Lesser Included Offenses Jury Instruction Claim

Text: Despite his failure to requestand having expressly rejectedsuch an instruction, Perkins claims that the trial court's failure to instruct the jury on lesser included offenses violated his Due Process rights. Where a defendant fails to request a lesser included offense jury instruction at trial, we review that claim for plain error, which requires a showing that the failure to grant that instruction would have affected the outcome of his trial. [31] Perkins first argues that the Superior Court's failure to instruct the jury on lesser included offenses may have pressured the members of a jury to unfairly balance a lifetime sentence with immediate acquittal. [32] We disagree. Delaware applies the party autonomy doctrine under which the burden of requesting lesser-included offense instructions is properly placed upon trial counsel, `for it is they who determine trial tactics and presumably act in accordance with a formulated strategy.' [33] In State v. Cox , we declared that the trial court ordinarily should not give a jury instruction on an uncharged lesser included offense where neither side requests or affirmatively agrees to such instruction. [34] The burden falls on defense counsel to request the instruction; otherwise, the trial court cannot discount the possibility that such a position [to decline the instruction] is a tactical decision by defense counsel. [35] Here, Perkins' counsel failed to request instructions on lesser included offenses of First Degree Murder. Despite that, the trial court conducted an independent colloquy with Perkins regarding his decision not to seek instructions on lesser included offenses. It is clear from that colloquy that Perkins knowingly, voluntarily and willingly waived his opportunity to have the trial court instruct the jury on lesser included offenses. [36] Alternatively, Perkins claims that the party autonomy rule violated his constitutional rights. Relying on the United States Supreme Court decisions in Schad v. Arizona [37] and Hopper v. Evans, [38] Perkins claims his Due Process rights were violated when the jury was confronted with an all-or-nothing choice, in this case to convict of First Degree Murder or acquit. Both of those decisions recognize that Due Process concerns can arise when a jury is forced to decide between capital murder and innocence, but in those cases the concern arose because a state statute precluded the jury from being instructed on lesser included offenses. Delaware has no such statute, and neither decision holds that Due Process concerns arise from a trial judge's failure to instruct the jury sua sponte. In Beck v. Alabama, [39] a case cited in both Schad and Hopper, the United States Supreme Court indicated that there is no affirmative duty for the judge or prosecution to instruct on lesser included offenses. [40] As the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has observed, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that instructions upon lesser included offenses were not compelled by Supreme Court precedent. [41] We determine that a defendant is entitled to an instruction on lesser included offenses if he or she requests the instruction and evidence in the record supports it. [42] In this case, Perkins' Due Process rights were not violated because he himself rejected a lesser included offense instruction that would otherwise have been given. [43] Because the instructions as to lesser included offenses were rejected by Perkins himself and the Superior Court had no affirmative duty to so instruct the jury sua sponte, no violation of Perkins' Due Process rights occurred.