Does the trial court have a duty to instruct on its own motion to convict a defendant of an attempted criminal threat?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from The People v. Perez, H033513, No. CC642651 (Cal. App. 2010):

The trial court has a duty to instruct on its own motion with respect to any lesser included offense that is supported by substantial evidence. (People v. Breverman (1998) 19 Cal.4th 142, 154; People v. Greenberger (1997) 58 Cal.App.4th 298, 378.) Defendant contends that the record presented substantial evidence from which a jury could find that he was guilty of attempted criminal threat but not of the completed offense. Penal Code section 422 ( 422) makes it a crime to "willfully threaten[] to commit a crime which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person, with the specific intent that the statement... is to be taken as a threat... which, on its face and under the circumstances in which it is made, is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to convey to the person threatened, a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat, and thereby causes that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety or for his or her immediate family's safety."

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