Opinion ID: 2332411
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Constitutionality of Refusal to Give Requested Instructions

Text: Finally, appellant argues that the trial court committed constitutional error in refusing to give the requested instruction. He notes that the Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged. In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 1073, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970). He then argues, on the basis of Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975), that by requiring appellant to produce at least some evidence of no malice (in order to earn the manslaughter instruction) or of mere assault (to qualify for the assault instructions), the burden of proof was shiftedunconstitutionally  to appellant. Mullaney concerned a Maine statute providing for punishment of all felonious homicide as murder unless the defendant were to prove by a fair preponderance of the evidence that it was committed in the heat of passion on sudden provocation, in which case it is punished as manslaughter. Id. at 692, 95 S.Ct. at 1886. Mullaney, however, does not support appellant's position. There, the Supreme Court stressed that [n]othing in this opinion is intended to affect [the] requirement [of] . . . [m]any states [that] . . . the defendant. . . show that there is `some evidence' indicating that he acted in the heat of passion before requiring the prosecution to negate this element by proving the absence of passion beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 701 n.28, 95 S.Ct. at 1891. Thus, the requirement of threshold evidence to justify a lesser-included offense charge (tantamount here to appellant's theory of the case) cannot be held an unconstitutional shift in the burden of proof. The requirement is better characterized as a minimal demonstration by a defendant that a lesser crime than the one charged should be considered  and the government put to its proof.