Opinion ID: 2208613
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Constitutional Issues Raised by the Lesser-Included Offense Doctrine.

Text: No discussion of the approaches to the lesser-included offense doctrine would be complete without an analysis of the constitutional issues raised by them. Blair, 21 Am.Crim.L.Rev. at 451. Those issues include adequate notice, double jeopardy, and the reliability of the fact-finding process. Id. A. Adequate notice. It is axiomatic that a defendant must have adequate notice of the charges in order to defend against them. This principle is embodied in the sixth amendment to the United States Constitution, which states that [i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation. See Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 68, 53 S.Ct. 55, 64, 77 L.Ed. 158, 170 (1932) (notice is an essential element of due process); see also Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 818, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 2532, 45 L.Ed.2d 562, 572 (1975) (under fourteenth amendment, right to notice is guaranteed to defendants in state courts). An implicit problem with the lesser-included offense doctrine is that under any of the approaches, a defendant will necessarily be defending against a charge of which the defendant has not expressly been given notice. Nevertheless, under the strict statutory-elements and cognate pleadings approaches, a defendant will usually experience no problem in determining what lesser-included offenses are possible. In these circumstances, the accusatory pleading is usually sufficient notice of the charges against which the accused must defend. Blair, 21 Am.Crim.L.Rev. at 452; see also Paterno v. Lyons, 334 U.S. 314, 320-22, 68 S.Ct. 1044, 1047-48, 92 L.Ed. 1409, 1415-16 (1948) (if crimes are of the same or overlapping nature, due process requirements are met). Sufficient notice will not always be so likely under the cognate-evidence and the Model Penal Code approaches. This is so because of the expanded range of possible lesser offenses under those broader approaches. See, e.g., Schmuck, 840 F.2d at 389 (If the determination whether the crimes are sufficiently related is not made until all the evidence is developed at trial, the defendant may not have had notice constitutionally sufficient to support an instruction at the prosecution's request.); see also Blair, 21 Am.Crim.L.Rev. at 451-52; Ettinger, 50 Brooklyn L.Rev. at 208 (inherent relationship test criticized as being potentially too broad to guarantee proper notice to the parties). B. Double jeopardy. Another constitutional issue raised by the lesser-included offense doctrine involves the fifth amendment provision that no person shall be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb. This provision protects against both multiple prosecutions and multiple punishments for the same offense. See North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 717, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 2076, 23 L.Ed.2d 656, 664-65 (1969). The lesser-included offense doctrine comes into play in determining what is a same offense for double-jeopardy purposes. Ex parte Nielsen, 131 U.S. 176, 188, 9 S.Ct. 672, 676, 33 L.Ed. 118, 122 (1889). According to Nielsen, if an offense is a lesser-included one of the offense charged, a conviction or acquittal of the charged offense bars a subsequent prosecution of the lesser offense. Id. Further, a conviction or acquittal of the lesser-included offense bars a subsequent prosecution of the greater offense. In Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 304, 52 S.Ct. 180, 182, 76 L.Ed. 306, 309 (1932), the Supreme Court laid down the following test for determining the same offense for double-jeopardy purposes: where the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or only one, is whether each provision requires proof of an additional fact which the other does not. This test parallels the strict statutory-elements approach. Ettinger, 50 Brooklyn L.Rev. at 218. Yet one commentator has taken the position that in a subsequent case, Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 53 L.Ed.2d 187 (1977), the Supreme Court actually used a cognate-evidence approach in applying the test. See Blair, 21 Am.Crim. L.Rev. at 457, 459. But see Ettinger, 50 Brooklyn L.Rev. at 219 n. 159 (taking the position that Brown observed the strict statutory-elements approach); Johnson, 637 F.2d at 1240. The implication of this view, of course, is that states may be bound to use the cognate-evidence approach for double-jeopardy purposes, even though they may otherwise employ a strict statutory-elements approach. Cf. Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 796, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 2063, 23 L.Ed.2d 707, 717 (1969) (fifth amendment guarantee against double jeopardy applies to the states). C. Reliability of the fact-finding process. We have discussed the constitutional issues of adequate notice and double jeopardy that arise when a lesser-included offense instruction is given. A possible due process issue comes into play when such an instruction is not given, though it is warranted by the evidence. A defendant may persuasively argue that under such circumstances, even though reasonable doubt exists as to the greater offense charged, the jury might convict because the evidence shows the defendant was guilty of some offense. Failure to give the instruction could thus call into question the reliability of the fact-finding process and might raise a serious constitutional question. See Keeble v. United States, 412 U.S. 205, 212-13, 93 S.Ct. 1993, 1997-98, 36 L.Ed.2d 844, 850 (1973) (defendant is entitled to a lesser-included offense instruction when withholding the instruction raises a substantial risk of an erroneous decision in the fact-finding process; court stopped short of elevating this right to constitutional level); Blair, 21 Am.Crim.L.Rev. at 462-63. Using precisely the same reasoning, the Supreme Court has held that in a capital case, a failure to give a lesser-included noncapital offense instruction warranted by the evidence violates due process under the fourteenth amendment. Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 637-38, 100 S.Ct. 2382, 2389-90, 65 L.Ed.2d 392, 402-03 (1980) (invalidating statute prohibiting trial court from instructing on lesser-included offenses in capital cases regardless of evidence justifying conviction of such an offense). The Court stopped short of deciding whether due process requires such instructions to be given in a noncapital case, expressly stating in a footnote that it was not deciding the issue. Id. at 638 n. 14, 100 S.Ct. at 2390, 65 L.Ed.2d at 403. If the Beck rule is applicable to noncapital cases, as one commentator believes, then serious questions arise as to which approach to lesser-included offenses satisfies the Beck rule. See Blair, 21 Am.Crim.L.Rev. at 464-72. It has been suggested that the Model Penal Code approach and the cognate-evidence approach are the only ones that can safely meet the potential constitutional issue raised in Beck. See Blair, 21 Am.Crim. L.Rev. at 466-68, 468 n. 155; see also Johnson, 637 F.2d at 1234-39; People v. Geiger, 35 Cal.3d 510, 518-20, 674 P.2d 1303, 1306-08, 199 Cal.Rptr. 45, 48-50 (1984). In any event, a question arises about whether a state can constitutionally use its own approach to lesser-included offenses if that approach results in no lesser offense instruction being given when the evidence suggests such an offense was committed.