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Mont. Code Ann. § 46-16-607

Conviction of lesser included offense

Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case STATE of Tennessee v. Phedrek T. DAVIS (2008)

Most recently applied in 8 Cal. 5th 57 - People v. Fontenot (August 2019)

En

How often courts cite this section

20082010201920
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) The defendant may be found guilty of an offense necessarily included in the offense charged or of an attempt to commit either the offense charged or an offense necessarily included in the offense charged.

(2) A lesser included offense instruction must be given when there is a proper request by one of the parties and the jury, based on the evidence, could be warranted in finding the defendant guilty of a lesser included offense.

(3) When a lesser included offense instruction is given, the court shall instruct the jury that it must reach a verdict on the crime charged before it may proceed to a lesser included offense. Upon request of the defendant at the settling of instructions, the court shall instruct the jury that it may consider the lesser included offense if it is unable after reasonable effort to reach a verdict on the greater offense.

Official source: Montana Code Annotated (Montana Legislature). Reproduced from public-domain Montana statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.