Legal Question in Criminal Law in California
Is it possible to be prosecuted for two counts related to the same crime at a trial?
That�s a case of a defendant who has been arraigned on a charge of involuntary manslaughter. After the preliminary hearings, the judge ruled to put him on trial for this crime according to the DA�s request. Let�s assume that DA takes the decision to add additional charges before the arraignment and file a request for second degree murder. Let�s assume that the case gets to trial after the judge accepted DA�s request. At trial, can the defendant be convicted on the charge of involuntary manslaughter if the jury comes to decide that there�s not enough evidence for the second degree murder? Or the acquittal for the higher charges, that is second degree murder, means that the defendant will walk free without facing the lower charges, that is involuntary manslaughter?
1 Answer from Attorneys
The prosecutor can ask the jury to convict the defendant of a more serious offense or, in the alternative, of a less serious offense. This often happens where the evidence of most elements of the crime is strong but the evidence of one or more elements is weak.
Where one crime is a lesser-included offense of the other (in other words, where the elements of the first offense include all of the elements of the second, plus additional elements), the defendant is entitled to jury instructions about both crimes. In California, involuntary manslaughter is not necessarily a lesser included offense of second-degree murder, but it can be under some circumstances.
But even where one crime is not a lesser included offense of the other, it is possible that jurors will believe some evidence and reject others, leading them to convict only of the less-serious crime.
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