Opinion ID: 1788650
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: whether the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury on certain lesser included offenses.

Text: Jury instructions are not given unless there is an evidentiary basis in the record for such instructions. Colburn v. State, 431 So.2d 1111, 1114 (Miss. 1983). A lesser included offense instruction should be generally given when a reasonable jury could find the defendant, pursuant to the evidence presented, not guilty of the principal charge but guilty of a lesser included offense. Toliver v. State, 600 So.2d 186, 192 (Miss. 1992), Mackbee v. State, 575 So.2d 16, 23 (Miss. 1990). Lesser included offense instructions should be refused only when the evidence could justify nothing other than a conviction on the principal charge, viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the accused. Hester v. State, 602 So.2d 869, 873 (Miss. 1992). First, Scotti and Terry argue that Sheriff McKenzie's testimony concerning the chain of custody is confusing. However, McKenzie simply recanted his previous testimony, stating that he had gotten the Jackson and Gulfport crime labs mixed up. This claim does not appear probative to the issue of the lesser included offenses of possession of less than a kilogram. The state cites Ford v. State, 555 So.2d 691 (Miss. 1989), in which a defendant charged with grand larceny, requested a lesser offense instruction of petit larceny. The defendant, charged with taking $750, argued that since only $100 was witnessed to have been taken, the lesser offense of petit larceny should have been considered by the jury. However, this Court responded that this was not real evidence, but negative implication evidence. The Court stated that, giving the defendant all reasonable favorable inferences, the evidence could not sustain a verdict on the lesser offense. Id. at 697. In the instant case, the only evidence supporting the defense's lesser included offense theory is possibly the cross-examination of the crime lab expert, Gross. Scotti and Terry argue that since Gross did not test the entire substance, and the amount actually identified to be marijuana was less than a kilogram and less than an ounce, then the evidence supported these lesser offenses. However, Gross stated that it was common to test representative samples to determine the identity of a large amount of a substance. Gross did so, and identified the entire substance to be 7.7 kg of marijuana. There is no testimony that contradicts this. Gross believed the entire substance was marijuana. Hence, the fact question for the jury was whether the entire substance was marijuana, or was the entire substance not marijuana. Gross did not submit to the proposition that only what he tested was marijuana. Since the evidence presented a fact question of either all marijuana, or no marijuana, refusal of these jury instructions was not error.