California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Brooks, 2 Cal.5th 674, 216 Cal.Rptr.3d 528, 393 P.3d 1 (Cal. 2017):
Defendant acknowledges that he was not separately charged with the crime of torture. He also acknowledges that this court has long held that a court's sua sponte duty to instruct on lesser included offenses does not extend to an uncharged offense supporting a special circumstance allegation, or a charge of first degree felony murder. (See, e.g., People v. Valdez (2004) 32 Cal.4th 73, 110-111, 8 Cal.Rptr.3d 271, 82 P.3d 296 [when robbery is not a charged offense but rather forms the basis of a felony-murder charge and a robbery-murder special-circumstance allegation, the court has no sua sponte duty to instruct on theft as a lesser offense to robbery]; accord, People v. Combs (2004) 34 Cal.4th 821, 856, 22 Cal.Rptr.3d 61, 101 P.3d 1007 [same].)
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