California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Higgins, B230156 (Cal. App. 2012):
necessarily included in a greater offense when the greater offense cannot be committed without committing the lesser offense. (People v. Birks (1998) 19 Cal.4th 108, 117-118.) The offenses are compared using the language of the statutes or the accusatory pleading. (Ibid.) Under the statutory elements test, the possession of burglary tools, a violation of section 466, is not a necessary included offense of burglary in violation of section 459. As the trial court pointed out, the elements of burglary consist only of entering a building or room with the intent to commit theft or any felony. (People v. Foster (2010) 50 Cal.4th 1301, 1348.) Burglary thus can be committed without possessing burglary tools. The accusatory pleading does not contain language that would render the possession of burglary tools a necessarily included offense of attempted burglary or conspiracy to commit burglary. A criminal defendant does not have a "unilateral entitlement" to instructions on offenses that are not necessarily included in the charged offense. (People v. Birks, at p. 136.)
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