Court Opinion

ID: 9683444
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:28:51.225883+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:47.936864
License: Public Domain

MeCORMICK, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The issue in this case is whether the second prong of the Rousseau v. State test, which sets out when a trial court must submit a defense-requested lesser included offense instruction, is applicable when the State requests a lesser included offense instruction over the defendant’s objection. See Rousseau v. State, 856 S.W.2d 666, 672-73 (Tex.Cr.App.1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 919, 114 S.Ct. 313, 126 L.Ed.2d 260 (1993). The majority holds the second prong of Rousseau is applicable in these circumstances. I disagree.
Rousseau should not control here because Rousseau sets out the test for when a trial court is required to submit a defense-requested lesser included offense instruction. See Arevalo v. State, 918 S.W.2d 46, 50 fn. 6 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1996). In all other situations, it should be within the trial court’s discretion to submit lesser included offense instructions.
Under Rousseau, a trial court must submit a defense-requested lesser included offense instruction when two conditions are satisfied. Under the first prong of the Rousseau test, the requested jury instruction must meet the definition of a lesser included offense which usually means “the lesser included offense must be included in the proof necessary to establish the offense charged.” Rousseau, 855 S.W.2d at 672; see Article 37.09, V.A.C.C.P., (definition of lesser included offense). Under the second prong of Rousseau, there must be some evidence in the record “that if the defendant is guilty, he is guilty only of the lesser offense.” Rousseau, 855 S.W.2d at 672 (citing Aguilar v. State, 682 S.W.2d 556, 558 (Tex.Cr.App.1985)). and at 673 (some evidence must exist in the record that would permit a jury rationally to find that if the defendant is guilty, he is guilty only of the lesser offense).
This Court’s holdings in cases like Rousseau on when a trial court must submit a defense-requested lesser included offense instruction are not based on any Texas statute. These holdings have federal constitutional underpinnings. See generally Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 635, 100 S.Ct. 2382, 2388-89, 65 L.Ed.2d 392 (1980) (defendant is constitutionally 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); Saunders v. State, 913 S.W.2d 564, 571-72 (Tex.Cr.App.1995). The potential harm in cases to which Beck and Rousseau apply is:
*891“the possibility that a jury, believing the defendant to have committed some crime, but given only the option to convict him of a greater offense, may have chosen to find him guilty of that greater offense, rather than to acquit him altogether, even though it had a reasonable doubt he really committed the greater offense.” Saunders, 913 S.W.2d at 571 (citing Beck, 447 U.S. at 633-35, 100 S.Ct. at 2388).
The Supreme Court has determined it violates a defendant’s constitutional rights for a trial court to deny a defense-requested lesser included offense instruction when the jury rationally could find the defendant guilty of the lesser included offense and not guilty of the greater offense but its only choice is to convict the defendant of the greater offense or to acquit him. See Beck, 447 U.S. at 635, 100 S.Ct. at 2388-89; Saunders, 913 S.W.2d at 571-72. This is a restatement of the second prong of Rousseau. See Rousseau, 855 S.W.2d at 673 (some evidence must exist in record that would permit a jury rationally to find that if defendant is guilty, he is guilty of only the lesser offense). The harm in this situation is the jury may decide to convict the defendant of the greater offense even though it has a reasonable doubt on whether he committed the greater offense. See Beck, 447 U.S. at 635, 100 S.Ct. at 2388-89.
There is no such potential for harm or constitutional impediment in allowing a trial court discretion to submit lesser included offense instructions in cases like this even when the second prong of Rousseau is not satisfied. See Beck, 447 U.S. at 634-35, 100 S.Ct. at 2388-89. In these circumstances, an unpersuaded jury on the greater charged offense does not have to choose between convicting the defendant of the greater charged offense or acquitting him. The rationale of cases like Beck and Rousseau is not implicated when a trial court submits jury instructions on lesser included offenses even when the second prong of Rousseau is not satisfied.
What appellant’s argument essentially boils down to is that in cases like this a defendant should be entitled to an acquittal either at trial or on appeal if, during the course of trial, the prosecution discovers that its evidence on one or more elements of the greater charged offense is “weak” or “not proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”1 According to this scheme, the jury in these circumstances should only be given the option of convicting the defendant of the greater charged offense or acquitting him because doing otherwise would encourage the jury to return a “compromise or otherwise unwarranted verdict.”
This scheme is not constitutionally required. See Beck, 447 U.S. at 633-35, 100 S.Ct. at 2387-89. As the Supreme Court in Beck noted, under federal common law “the jury was permitted to find the defendant guilty of any lesser offense necessarily included in the offense charged.” Beck, 447 U.S. at 633, 100 S.Ct. at 2387. This “rule originally developed as an aid to the prosecution in cases in which the proof failed to establish some element of the crime charged.” Id. Appellant’s scheme stands the rationale of Beck on its head. Beck seeks to prevent an “unjust” conviction on the greater charged offense by giving the jury a “third option” of convicting on a lesser included offense. See Beck, 447 U.S. at 633-34, 100 S.Ct. at 2387-88. Appellant’s scheme seeks to guarantee acquittals of “guilty” defendants either at the trial or appellate levels. But see id.
*892. In addition to all this, the Court of Appeals correctly pointed out that when the State alleges an offense in an indictment the defendant is also put on notice that the State may seek a conviction on all lesser offenses included within the charged offense without the State having to seek a new indictment. See Arevalo, 918 S.W.2d at 49 (State may elect to proceed on a lesser included offense under an indictment alleging the greater offense); cf. Clardy v. State, 436 S.W.2d 535 (Tex.Cr.App.1968). If the State can do this pretrial, there is no reason why it cannot do this during the course of trial.
Having concluded the Constitution does not compel the holding the majority adopts in this case, the issue before the Court becomes purely a matter of state law. I have found no statutes that limit a trial court’s discretion to submit lesser included offense instructions. On the contrary, the “plain language” of our statutes grant trial courts broad discretion to submit lesser included offense instructions even when the second prong of Rousseau is not satisfied. See Article 37.08, V.A.C.C.P., (in prosecution for an offense with lesser included offenses, the jury may find the defendant not guilty of the greater offense, but guilty of any lesser included offense). Article 37.08 does not limit a trial court’s discretion to submit a lesser included offense instruction only in those situations where there is some evidence in the record that if the defendant is guilty he is guilty only of the lesser offense. The issue in this case boils down to a straight-forward application of the “plain language” of Article 37.08.
However, because the majority opinion should be read to mean the Constitution compels the holding it adopts here, I must respectfully dissent.
KELLER and HOLLAND, JJ., join this dissent.

. For example, the State argues:
"If a State’s attorney only has evidence of a greater offense, but determines during the trial from listening to the witnesses that one or more aggravating elements of his case was weak or was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt, he is duty bound to submit a lesser included offense. As a former trial attorney, it was my experience that it was not unusual for the strength of testimony to appear different after live witnesses are put on the stand. Such witnesses are subjected to cross examination on topics which the State has no right to discover from defense counsel before trial. A defense counsel on the other hand has a duty only to protect the best interest of his client. Defense counsel also has much more extensive discovery than does the State. Different rules on charging should apply to the State and the defendant.”