Court Opinion

ID: 9587722
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:25:40.006454+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:00:55.394573
License: Public Domain

CHAPEL, Judge,
specially concurring:
Although I agree with the majority that a defendant may waive the right to a lesser included offense instruction, I believe the Court should expand its opinion to more fully develop the doctrine of mutuality which governs this issue. That doctrine dictates that a defendant may not unilaterally waive a lesser included offense instruction and in effect preclude the trial court by veto from giving it. State v. Keffer, 860 P.2d 1118, 1123 (Wyo.1993).
First, it is the trial court’s duty to instruct on the law. Accordingly,
[t]his Court has consistently held that it is the duty of the trial court to determine as a matter of law whether the evidence is sufficient to justify the submission of instructions on a lesser included offense, and if there is doubt, the court should submit the matter to the jury.
Rowland v. State, 817 P.2d 263, 266 (Okl.Cr.1991) (citations omitted). Once the trial court has determined an instruction on a lesser included offense is warranted, such an instruction must be given. Keffer, 860 P.2d at 1132 (failure to give lesser included offense instruction supported by the evidence violates due process). The only exception is if the instruction is waived, and the State does not object to that waiver.
The doctrine of mutuality is a logical outgrowth of the purposes behind lesser included offense instructions, which are:
[to] both aid the prosecution if the proof presented at trial fails to establish all of the elements of the charged offense and also to give the defendant the benefit of a less drastic alternative than a choice between conviction and acquittal on the charged offense.
Keffer, 860 P.2d at 1125. Because lesser included offense instructions are for the benefit of both the State and the defense, both have the right to demand and receive such an instruction when the evidence warrants it. Therefore, I would make perfectly clear that if the State had objected to the defendant’s waiver of the lesser included offense instruction in this case, the trial court would have been precluded from allowing her to waive it. Because the State did not object to the defendant’s waiver in this case, I concur.