Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

735 F.2d 967

Docket No. 83-1301.

Ferrazza v. Mintzes

Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals

Argued April 16, 1984.

Decided May 25, 1984.

Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1984-05-25

2 counsel of record

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“Beck held that due process requires that a lesser included offense instruction be given when the evidence warrants such an instruction. But due process requires that a lesser included offense instruction be given only when the evidence warrants such an instruction. The jury’s discretion is thus channelled so that it may convict a defendant of any crime fairly supported by the evidence. Under Alabama law, the rule in noncapital cases is that a lesser included offense instruction should be given if ‘there is any reasonable theory from the evidence which would support the position.’ The federal rule is that a lesser included offense instruction should be given ‘if the evidence would permit a jury rationally to find [a defendant] guilty of the lesser offense and acquit him of the greater.’ The Alabama rule clearly does not offend federal constitutional standards, and no reason has been advanced why it should not apply in capital cases.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including Bagby v. Sowders, Allen v. Tl Morris

Relies on Linkletter v. Walker · Beck v. Alabama · Hopper v. Evans

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Opinion by Gilbert Stroud Merritt Jr. · Decided 1984-05-25

How this case has been cited

Cited by 36 later decisions — most recently June 2008 · most notably Turner v. Marshall (1995), Bagby v. Sowders (1990)

23 federal appellate · 2 district · 1 state decisions

250198419902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Contributes to a circuit split: Whether the failure to give a lesser-included-offense instruction in a noncapital case presents constitutional error

¶1*968Frank J. Kelley, Atty. Gen. of Michigan, Eric J. Eggan, Asst. Atty. Gen., argued, Lansing, Mich., for respondent-appellant.

¶2James C. Thomas, Jamie Thomas, argued, Royal Oak, for petitioner-appellee.

¶3Before MERRITT and MARTIN, Circuit Judges, and BROWN, Senior Circuit Judge.

¶4MERRITT, Circuit Judge.

¶5In this habeas corpus case, the evidence presented against petitioner at his state trial for first degree murder shows that he participated in the murder of an individual who had been strangled to death, weighted with cement blocks and thrown into a lake. The Respondent Warden appeals from the District Court’s judgment granting the writ. The District Court held — we believe, incorrectly — that the state trial court’s failure to instruct the jury on a lesser included homicide offense in addition to first degree murder violated defendant’s constitutional right to due process protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. In Hopper v. Evans, 456 U.S. 605, 611, 102 S.Ct. 2049, 2052, 72 L.Ed.2d 367 (1982), the United States Supreme Court held in a capital case that “due process requires that a lesser included offense instruction be given only when the evidence warrants such an instruction.” See also Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 637, 100 S.Ct. 2382, 2389, 65 L.Ed.2d 392 (1980). The principle is not limited to capital cases and should be applied here as well. See Pilon v. Bordenkircher, 593 F.2d 264, 267 n. 4 (6th Cir.), vacated and remanded on other grounds, 444 U.S. 1, 100 S.Ct. 7, 62 L.Ed.2d 1 (1979).

¶6We do not find evidence in the record below which “warrants” an instruction on a lesser offense. The evidence supports the conviction of the petitioner for first degree murder and does not support the commission of the crime with less culpable intent or diminished capacity. Hopper v. Evans, 456 U.S. at 611, 100 S.Ct. at 2389. The evidence presented at petitioner’s trial clearly indicated petitioner participated in the murder of an individual whom petitioner had forced from a bowling alley at gunpoint the evening before the deceased’s body was found floating in a lake. The deceased had been tied about the neck and ankles with plastic-coated wire wash-line and had been weighted down with two cement patio blocks. The deceased died as a result of asphyxia due to strangulation.

¶7Petitioner also makes an additional argument that the Michigan Supreme Court’s failure to apply the rule of People v. Jones, 395 Mich. 379, 236 N.W.2d 461 (1975) (a defendant under state law has a right upon request to have the jury instructed on a necessarily included offense), retroactively to his case violates federal equal protection. We know of no authority or equal protection principle requiring retroactive application of a new rule of criminal law to cases which had become final prior to the new decision. See Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 14 L.Ed.2d 601 (1964).

¶8We thus conclude that neither due process nor equal protection requires an instruction on a lesser included offense in a *969ease — such as the instant one — where the evidence so clearly demonstrates that the petitioner is guilty of first degree murder, that is, murder with premeditation and deliberation. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the District Court.1

/735/f2d/967 · .json · Public domain