Opinion ID: 2095102
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Mutuality of Right

Text: It is well established in the federal courts that the defendant is entitled to an instruction on a lesser-included offense if the evidence would permit a jury rationally to find him guilty of the lesser offense and acquit him of the greater. [22] That principle is equally well established in state courts. [23] Almost twenty-five years ago, in Beck v. Alabama , the United States Supreme Court stated, [w]hile we have never held that a defendant is entitled to a lesser included offense instruction as a matter of due process, the nearly universal acceptance of the rule in both state and federal courts establishes the value to the defendant of this procedural safeguard. [24] Pursuant to Delaware's lesser-included offense statute, a trial judge is not required to instruct a jury with respect to a lesser-included offense unless there is a rational basis in the evidence for a verdict acquitting the defendant of the offense charged and convicting him of the included offense [instead]. [25] This Delaware statutory provision makes no distinction between requests made by the State or a defendant. Similarly, this provision does not limit the granting of such a request only to situations where no objection to the request is made by the opposing party. The mutuality of right doctrine affords the prosecution the equivalent right of the defendant to request and to have the jury receive lesser-included offense instructions. Those jurisdictions that otherwise permit the parties to adopt an all-or-nothing trial strategy abide by the general maxim that one party cannot demand an all-or-nothing strategy over the objection of the other. [26] In State v. Howland , the New Hampshire Supreme Court held that the State is entitled to have the lesser included offense instruction submitted to the jury if the evidence justifies it. The defendant is not entitled to `force an all or nothing verdict' by objecting to instructions on the lesser included offense if the evidence warrants it. [27] We have concluded that the mutuality of right doctrine is a logical corollary to Delaware's party autonomy approach to giving lesser-included offense instructions. Accordingly, we hold that the trial judge must give a lesser-included offense instruction at the request of either the defendant or the prosecution  even over the objection of the other party  if the evidence presented is such that a jury could rationally find the defendant guilty of the lesser-included offense and acquit the defendant of the greater offense. The only exception to this mutuality of right principle is when the State asks for a lesser-included instruction if at the time the offense is presented to the court, its prosecution is time barred. [28]