People v. Brown

Defendant was tried for murder. At the trial the prosecution tendered a manslaughter instruction, the defendant objected and none was given. He was convicted of murder. He now argues that the court sua sponte should have given the instruction regardless of his objection and in not giving such, we should reverse and remand for a new trial. In other words, it was error to accede to his objection — which is, to put it mildly, a somewhat bizzare stance in criminal (or even civil) appeals.

As we have said many times before, we review only errors of law and one of the ways to posit an error for our…