Court Opinion

ID: 9683445
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:28:51.230455+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:47.939307
License: Public Domain

MEYERS, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent to the majority’s holding that the test established by the Court’s opinions in Royster, Aguilar and Rousseau, must be met before a trial court may submit an instruction on a lesser included offense. A trial court has no discretion to deny a request for an instruction when this test is met, but nothing precludes a trial court from submitting an instruction even when this test is not met, provided the elements of the lesser offense are included within the elements of the charged offense so as to give adequate notice. This rule may enure to the benefit of either party.
Caselaw could not be more clear on the circumstances in which a trial court must give an instruction on a lesser included offense. This Court has held consistently since Aguilar v. State, 682 S.W.2d 556 (Tex.Crim.App.1985)(adopting test set forth by plurality in Royster v. State, 622 S.W.2d 442 (Tex.Crim.App.1981) (opinion on reh’g)), that a trial court is required to submit an instruction on a lesser included offense if (1) the lesser included offense is included within the proof necessary to establish the charged offense; and (2) there is some evidence in the record that if the defendant is guilty, he is guilty only of the lesser offense.1 While this test was modified somewhat by Rousseau v. State, 855 S.W.2d 666 (Tex.Crim.App.), cert. *893denied, 510 U.S. 919, 114 S.Ct. 313, 126 L.Ed.2d 260 (1993), its ultimate meaning was not affected. Under this line of precedent, when the evidence falls within the parameters of the “guilty only” test, a trial court has no choice but to submit a lesser included offense instruction — regardless of which party requests the instruction, it must be submitted.
The “guilty only” test does not otherwise curtail a trial court’s discretion to submit a lesser included offense instruction in circumstances that do not necessarily fit within the confines thereof. Code of Criminal Procedure article 37.08 provides that “[i]n a prosecution for an offense with lesser included offense, the jury may find the defendant not guilty of the greater offense, but guilty of any lesser included offense.” Article 37.09 defines a lesser included offense. Nothing in these provisions imposes or implies the imposition of a limitation on the trial court’s discretion to submit instructions on lesser included offenses. The only limitation on a trial court’s discretion to submit a lesser included offense, either sua sponte or pursuant to a request from the State, is that the elements of the lesser offense be subsumed by those charged in the indictment. See Schmuck v. United States, 489 U.S. 705, 718, 109 S.Ct. 1443, 1451-52, 103 L.Ed.2d 734 (1989)(defendant may not have constitutionally sufficient notice to support lesser included offense instruction requested by prosecutor if elements of lesser offense are not part of indictment).
The majority reasons that an instruction on a lesser included offense if the “guilty only” test is not met, invites the jury to reach an irrational verdict. Majority opinion at 889. This view disregards that the “guilty only” test establishes a mandatory. minimum. See fn. 1. Evidence could develop beyond the confines of the “guilty only” test but still rationally support a verdict on either the charged offense or a lesser included offense. For instance, the evidence may establish a dispute over a factual element of the charged offense (such as mental state) such that a conviction of either the greater or lesser offense would be reasonable; the “guilty only” test would not be met in these circumstances, but an instruction on the lesser offense is not inviting the jury to render an irrational verdict.2 See Aguilar, 682 S.W.2d at 562 (Teague, J., dissenting)(con*894tending trial court should be required to give charge on lesser offense “if the evidence from any source establishes a dispute over a factual element of the alleged offense, and the evidence would support a finding that accused was guilty of committing a lesser offense”). Moreover, if a defendant is convicted of a lesser included offense and that conviction is irrational in the sense that the evidence is insufficient to support it, the defendant would be entitled to acquittal on appeal. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978); Greene v. Massey, 437 U.S. 19, 98 S.Ct. 2151, 57 L.Ed.2d 15 (1978).
The majority’s opinion seriously undermines the discretion of a trial court to submit jury instructions on lesser included offenses, to the detriment of both parties. For these reasons, I dissent.

. The Royster progeny itself appears to derive from no reasoned basis. Although the "guilty only" test was first set forth by this Court in Daywood v. State, 157 Tex.Crim. 266, 248 S.W.2d 479 (1952), no authority was cited for the test and it was dicta. Daywood was thereafter cited as the genesis of the "guilty only" test. At any rate, while this Court has never expressly stated it, the "guilty only” test may set forth a constitutional minimum, describing circumstances in which an instruction is constitutionally mandated. See Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 637, 100 S.Ct. 2382, 2389-90, 65 L.Ed.2d 392 (1980)(sug-gesting that right of defendant to lesser included offense instruction "when supported by the evidence” as that may be defined by state law, may be matter of due process); cf. Saunders v. State, 913 S.W.2d 564, 571 (Tex.Crim.App.1995)(recog-nizing cases standing for proposition that "some” harm always occurs when trial court fails to submit instruction on lesser included offense when raised by evidence, at least where such failure left jury with sole option to either convict defendant of greater offense or acquit). This is not to say that the "guilty only” test could not give way to a less onerous standard, which I might be inclined to consider were the issue appropriately before the Court.

. Pre-Daywood cases recognized circumstances (that would not satisfy the "guilty only test”) in which a jury would he reasonable in rendering a verdict on either a greater or lesser offense. Judge Clinton discussed these considerations in dissenting to the adoption of the "guilty only” test:
Other theories suggested by the evidence may come to mind, but the point is, as made in Keeton v. State, 149 Tex.Cr.App. 27, 190 S.W.2d 820, 824 (1945, Opinion on Rehearing):
It is true that an indictment for rape includes also a charge for an assault with intent to rape, as well as an aggravated assault ... Yet, such an inclusion does not necessarily mean that in all trials charging rape such other assaults must be submitted. Instead, this matter should be governed by the testimony presented ... It may at times become the duty of the court to charge upon such lesser assaults where there is some doubt thrown on the completed offense, or where the testimony offered may fall short of a completed attack, or when any controversy might have arisen relative to such facts.
The reason for all of this, along with a statement directly contrary to the "guilty only” notion, was explained by Judge Hurt for the former Court of Appeals in Liskosski v. State, 23 Tex.App. 165, 3 S.W. 696, 698 (1887) with respect to certain testimony of the wife of the accused, the sole purported witness to the transaction:
... Yet, granting this its proper legal force in reaching a conclusion upon the general question of guilt or innocence, does not her testimony in some of its parts, present the theory that the killing ... was upon sudden quarrel and without malice. We conclude that it does; and in so concluding, it is not said that the appellant is not guilty, if guilty at all, of a higher grade of offense than manslaughter, or that he is guilty of that offense; nor was it necessary that either deduction should have been drawn by the trial judge below, nor is it now by us here. Any theory legitimately arising out of the evidence in a case imposes upon the court the duty of submission by appropriately instructing upon the law governing it; and this, without regard to the strength of [sic] weakness of the supporting facts. Uniform with the previous rulings of this court is the doctrine here declared, viz.: The charge of the court must make a pertinent application of the law covering every theory arising out of the evidence; that the duty is not dependent upon *894the court’s judgment of the strength or weakness of the testimony supporting the theory, it being the prerogative of the jury to pass upon the probative force of the testimony. The court should have given an instruction upon the law of manslaughter, and its failure to do so was error.
Watson v. State, 605 S.W.2d 877, 894-95 (Tex.Cr.App. 1979) (Clinton, J., dissenting)(emphasis in original).