Opinion ID: 78489
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Jury-Instruction Claims

Text: At Maples's trial, the state trial court instructed the jury on capital murder and robbery and, at Maples's attorneys' request, on the non-capital crimes of intentional murder and theft. Maples's attorneys did not request, and the trial court did not give, any instructions on manslaughter or intoxication. Maples now argues that the trial court's failure to instruct the jury sua sponte on manslaughter due to voluntary intoxication was a violation of his due process rights. [18] Maples raised this argument on direct appeal, and the state courts rejected it. Maples, 758 So.2d 81, 82 (Ala.1999); Maples, 758 So.2d 1, 23-24 (Ala.Crim.App. 1999). [19] The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that a charge on manslaughter due to voluntary intoxication was not required because: (1) although there was evidence Maples was drinking several hours before the murders, there was no evidence he was intoxicated at the time he committed them; (2) there was no rational basis for convicting Maples of manslaughter due to intoxication; and (3) the intoxication and manslaughter charge Maples argued for on appeal would have been inconsistent with his trial attorneys' strategy, which was to show Maples was not intoxicated at the time of the murders. Maples v. State, 758 So.2d at 23-24. The Alabama appellate court stated: The legislature has defined intoxicated to include a disturbance of mental or physical capacities resulting from the introduction of any substance into the body. § 13A-3-2(e)(1), Ala.Code 1975. Thus, evidence of ingestion of alcohol or drugs, standing alone, is insufficient to support a charge on intoxication. In addition, there must be evidence that the ingestion caused a disturbance of the person's mental or physical capacities and that that mental or physical disturbance existed at the time the offense was committed. ... Evidence that someone was drinking an alcoholic beverage is not evidence that that person was intoxicated. ... Furthermore, instructions on intoxication and manslaughter are not required when they would be inconsistent with the defense strategy.... Finally, under § 13A-1-9(b), Ala. Code 1975, a trial court is not required to instruct on a lesser included offense unless there is a rational basis for a verdict convicting the defendant of the included offense. The testimony at trial did not establish that the appellant was intoxicated at the time of the murders. Although there was some testimony that he had ingested alcohol several hours before the murders occurred, there was no testimony that he was intoxicated at the time of the murders. Also, there was no evidence that he had ingested drugs before the murders. Thus, there was no rational basis for instructions on intoxication and manslaughter under the evidence presented in this case. Furthermore, instructions on intoxication and manslaughter would have been inconsistent with his defense strategy. At trial, the appellant specifically contended that he was not intoxicated at the time of the murders. He also contended that, at most, he was guilty of two intentional murders, but not two counts of capital murder. Thus, the trial court did not err in not instructing the jury on intoxication and manslaughter. Id. (quotation marks and citations omitted). The Alabama appellate court's decision about the charge on manslaughter due to voluntary intoxication is neither contrary to, nor an unreasonable application of, established federal law. Maples relies primarily on Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 100 S.Ct. 2382, 65 L.Ed.2d 392 (1980), but Beck is completely inapposite because it involved an all-or-nothing statute no longer extant. In the 1970s, Beck was convicted of capital murder. In Beck, the Supreme Court invalidated an Alabama statute that absolutely prohibited in capital cases the charging of all non-capital lesser included offenses. Although the evidence warranted such an instruction in Beck's case, the Alabama jury was given the choice only of (1) convicting Beck of the capital offense, for which the jury must impose the death penalty, or (2) setting him free. Beck, 447 U.S. at 628-30, 100 S.Ct. at 2385-86. The Supreme Court held Alabama's all-or-nothing statute was unconstitutional because the absolute preclusion in a capital case of a lesser included offense, when the evidence supported it, violated procedural due process. See Beck, 447 U.S. at 627, 100 S.Ct. at 2384 (overturning death penalty where jury was not permitted to consider a verdict of guilt of a lesser included non-capital offense, and when the evidence would have supported such a verdict); cf. Hopper v. Evans, 456 U.S. 605, 610-14, 102 S.Ct. 2049, 2052-54, 72 L.Ed.2d 367 (1982) (upholding death sentence even though jury was instructed on only capital offense under Alabama's preclusion statute, because the evidence did not support a lesser included offense charge and defendant was thus not prejudiced by preclusion statute). [20] By the time of Maples's trial, there was no such preclusion statute and Alabama law permitted the charging of lesser included non-capital offenses if the evidence supported it. The core issue in Beck the all-or-nothing choice between death or acquittal even though the evidence actually warranted a finding of a lesser included non-capital offenseis not present here. In addition, the Supreme Court revisited Beck in Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U.S. 447, 104 S.Ct. 3154, 82 L.Ed.2d 340 (1984), concluding that giving the jury an all-or-nothing choice is permissible if the defendant chose not to request a lesser included offense. In Spaziano, the defendant was charged with capital murder after the statutes of limitation had run on all of his potential lesser included offenses. Id. at 450, 104 S.Ct. at 3156. The trial court gave Spaziano the choice of either waiving the statutes of limitation to receive the lesser included offense instructions, or not waiving the statutes of limitation and facing the jury's all-or-nothing choice. Id. at 450, 104 S.Ct. at 3157. Spaziano chose the latter, was convicted of capital murder, and appealed. Id. at 450-52, 104 S.Ct. at 3157-58. The Supreme Court rejected Spaziano's argument that the jury's all-or-nothing choice between capital murder and acquittal violated Beck because Spaziano was given a choice whether to accept lesser included offense charges or not and he knowingly chose not to do so. Id. at 457, 104 S.Ct. at 3160. In other words, there was no due process issue because Spaziano (and his attorneys) had the option of obtaining a lesser included offense instruction, even though no such instruction was given. Thus, if the state law permits consideration of a lesser included non-capital offense and the attorneys do not request a charge on that offense, there is no Beck issue at all. Id. at 456, 104 S.Ct. at 3160 (stating, there may well be cases in which the defendant will be confident enough that the State has not proved capital murder that he will want to take his chances with the jury). Certainly the Supreme Court has never stated, or even implied, that a state trial court must sua sponte instruct the jury on a lesser included offense that the capital defendant never requested. Although the above reasons are alone sufficient, in Schad v. Arizona, 501 U.S. 624, 111 S.Ct. 2491, 115 L.Ed.2d 555 (1991), the Supreme Court made plain that the Beck rule does not apply in situations, like Maples's, where the jury was instructed on one lesser included non-capital offense that had evidentiary support, but the defendant argues the jury should have received instructions on every potential lesser included non-capital offense supported by the evidence, or at least a different one than that given. Schad, 501 U.S. at 646-48, 111 S.Ct. at 2504-05. The Supreme Court in Schad concluded that Beck simply is not implicated ..., for petitioner's jury was not faced with an all-or-nothing choice between the offense of conviction (capital murder) and innocence. Id. at 647, 111 S.Ct. at 2505. [21] Lastly, a lesser included non-capital offense instruction is warranted only when the evidence supports such an instruction. As Maples's own attorney told the jury [22] and as the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals found, the evidence did not support an intoxication theory. [23] For each of the above reasons, the Alabama state courts' decision that federal law did not require the trial court to sua sponte give a jury instruction on the non-capital offense of manslaughter due to involuntary intoxication was neither contrary to, nor an unreasonable application of, established Supreme Court precedent.