## Facts

- A fight occurred outside Scott Breverman’s house between two pedestrians and a larger group gathered in Breverman’s driveway; the pedestrians left with minor injuries.
- The following night, at least one of the pedestrians returned with others, taunted Breverman, and damaged Breverman’s car in the driveway using a baseball bat and other objects.
- Breverman fired multiple shots from inside through a front-door window, then exited and fired additional shots at the fleeing group.
- A bullet from the second volley killed one member of the group.
- Breverman was charged with murder.
- The trial court instructed on murder, justifiable homicide in reasonable self-defense, and lesser included offenses of voluntary and involuntary manslaughter.
- The voluntary manslaughter instruction was limited to “unreasonable self-defense” (imperfect self-defense) and did not include a heat-of-passion theory.

## Issues

1. Whether a trial court’s sua sponte duty to instruct on lesser necessarily included offenses includes a duty to instruct on every theory of the lesser offense that is supported by the evidence.
2. What prejudice standard governs a trial court’s erroneous failure to instruct, or failure to instruct completely, on a lesser included offense in a noncapital case.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of California held that trial courts must instruct sua sponte on all lesser necessarily included offenses supported by the evidence.
- In murder cases, the duty includes instructing on every evidentiary supported theory of voluntary manslaughter, not only the theory emphasized by the defense or most strongly supported by the record.
- The court held the omission of a supported lesser-included-offense instruction in a noncapital case is an error of state law, not structural error and not a federal constitutional error requiring Chapman review.
- The proper appellate standard is the state-law harmless-error test of People v. Watson: whether it is reasonably probable the error affected the outcome.
- The court reversed the Court of Appeal’s judgment and remanded for reconsideration of prejudice under Watson.

## Legal Principles

- California trial courts have a sua sponte obligation to instruct fully on all lesser necessarily included offenses that find substantial support in the evidence.
- That obligation extends to all supported theories of a lesser included offense (including, in a murder case, all supported theories of voluntary manslaughter such as heat of passion and imperfect self-defense), regardless of defense requests or trial strategy.
- In noncapital cases, an erroneous failure to instruct sua sponte on a lesser included offense (or a supported theory of it) is state-law instructional error subject to Watson harmless-error review.
- Sedeno’s approach suggesting near-automatic reversal for omitted lesser-included instructions is disapproved to the extent inconsistent with Watson review.

## Conclusion

The court required sua sponte instructions on every evidence-supported lesser-included offense theory in murder cases, but treated the failure to do so in noncapital cases as state-law trial error reversible only upon a reasonable probability of a different result under Watson.


People v. Breverman, 19 Cal. 4th 142 (Cal. 1998)