Cite as: 508 U. S. 333 (1993)
Blackmun, J., dissenting
tially ensured that a person guilty of voluntary manslaughter would be convicted, wrongly, of murder.
Returning to the hypothetical example set forth above, the omission of a self-defense instruction in Jane Doe's case would distort the definition of murder by causing the jury to include killings in self-defense within that definition. A person who kills in self-defense, however, like a person who kills under provocation, is not guilty of murder under state law and is therefore not subject to the penalties prescribed for murder. Any conviction that results from the omission of a state-law affirmative defense is therefore, in the case of provocation and in the case of self-defense, an inaccurate conviction.
The State suggests that the right asserted by Taylor is the same as that recognized by this Court in Beck v. Alabama, 447 U. S. 625 (1980). See Brief for Petitioner 17. In Beck, this Court held that a capital defendant is entitled to a lesser included offense instruction if there is evidence in the record to support such an instruction. We left open the question whether Beck applies in the noncapital context. 447 U. S., at 638, n. 14. The State here asserts that because many Courts of Appeals have rejected such a right in the noncapital context, this Court could do the same with respect to Taylor's claim. See Brief for Petitioner 17, and n. 7. This assertion is without merit.
Like the right Taylor claims, Beck entitles certain defendants to have the jury consider less drastic alternatives to murder. This, however, is where the similarity between the two rights ends. In Beck, the Court's concern and the reason for the required lesser included offense instruction was that jurors might ignore their reasonable-doubt instruction. Where the defendant is " 'plainly guilty of some offense,' " 447 U. S., at 634, quoting Keeble v. United States, 412 U. S. 205, 213 (1973) (emphasis in original), there is a risk that absent a lesser included offense instruction, the jurors will convict a defendant of capital murder, thereby exposing him
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