Beck v. Alabama

Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625 (1980), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a jury must be allowed to consider lesser included offenses, not just capital offense or acquittal.

Beck v. Alabama
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 20, 1980 Decided June 20, 1980
Full case name	Beck v. Alabama
Citations	447 U.S. 625 (more) 100 S. Ct. 2382; 65 L. Ed. 2d 392; 1980 U.S. LEXIS 134
Holding
The death sentence may not constitutionally be imposed after a jury verdict of guilt of a capital offense where the jury was not permitted to consider a verdict of guilt of a lesser included offense.
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William J. Brennan Jr. · Potter Stewart Byron White · Thurgood Marshall Harry Blackmun · Lewis F. Powell Jr. William Rehnquist · John P. Stevens
Case opinions
Majority	Stevens, joined by Burger, Brennan, Stewart, Blackmun, and Powell
Concurrence	Brennan
Concurrence	Marshall
Dissent	Rehnquist, joined by White
Laws applied
Due Process

Background

Beck was participating in a robbery when his accomplice intentionally killed someone. Beck was tried for capital murder. Under the Code of Alabama, Section 13-11-2 (1975), the requisite intent to kill could not be supplied by the felony murder doctrine. Felony murder was thus a lesser-included offense of the capital crime of robbery with an intentional killing. Under the statute, the judge was specifically prohibited from giving the jury the option of convicting for the lesser-included offense. This prohibition was unique to Alabama. Absent the statutory ban on such an instruction, Beck's testimony would have entitled him to an instruction on felony murder

Lower Courts

In the lower courts, Beck attacked the ban on the grounds that the Alabama statute was the same as the mandatory death penalty statutes that the Court had been striking down in recent holdings.

Decision of the Supreme Court

Though the lower courts disagreed, the Supreme Court held that the death sentence may not constitutionally be imposed after a jury verdict of guilt of a capital offense where the jury was not permitted to consider a verdict of guilt of a lesser included offense. As a result, the convictions of eleven men on death row were overturned, including Beck's.

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 447

External links

• Text of Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625 (1980) is available from: CourtListener Google Scholar Justia Library of Congress Oyez (oral argument audio)