What is the test for instructing a jury to find a defendant not guilty of a lesser charge of assault?

California, United States of America

The following excerpt is from People v. Bonilla, F062175 (Cal. App. 2012):

It has been said that "[w]here a defendant 'denies any complicity in the crime charged, and thus lays no foundation for any verdict intermediate between "not guilty" and "guilty as charged" ... [] ... it is error to so instruct [on the lesser offense] because to do so would violate the fundamental rule that instructions must be pertinent to the evidence in the case at bar.' [Citation.]" (People v. Trimble (1993) 16 Cal.App.4th 1255, 1260.) Because jurors "are not required to make a binary choice between the prosecution evidence and the defense evidence," however, "if the evidence as a whole would support

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