Cite as: 524 U. S. 88 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
setting respondent free, but rather sentencing him to life imprisonment.7
Moreover, respondent's proposed instructions would have introduced another kind of distortion at trial. Nebraska proceeded against respondent only on a theory of felony murder, a crime that under state law has no lesser included homicide offenses. The State therefore assumed the obligation of proving only that crime, as well as any lesser included offenses that existed under state law and were supported by the evidence; its entire case focused solely on that obligation. To allow respondent to be convicted of homicide offenses that are not lesser included offenses of felony murder, therefore, would be to allow his jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt elements that the State had not attempted to prove, and indeed that it had ignored during the course of trial. This can hardly be said to be a reliable result: "Where no lesser included offense exists, a lesser included offense instruction detracts from, rather than enhances, the rationality of the process." Spaziano v. Florida, supra, at 455.
The Court of Appeals also erroneously relied upon our decisions in Tison v. Arizona, 481 U. S. 137 (1987), and Enmund v. Florida, 458 U. S. 782 (1982), to support its holding. It reasoned that because those cases require proof of a culpable mental state with respect to the killing before the death penalty may be imposed for felony murder, Nebraska could not refuse lesser included offense instructions on the ground that the only intent required for a felony-murder conviction is the intent to commit the underlying felony. See 102 F. 3d, at 984. In so doing, the Court of Appeals read Tison and
7 We are not, of course, presented with a case that differs from Beck only in that the jury is not the sentencer, and we express no opinion here whether that difference alone would render Beck inapplicable. The crucial distinction between Beck and this case, as noted, is the distinction between a State's prohibiting instructions on offenses that state law recognizes as lesser included, and a State's refusing to instruct on offenses that state law does not recognize as lesser included.
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