United States v. Morgan

Appellant did not request an instruction that a finding of voluntary intoxication on his part would reduce his crime from unpremeditated murder to voluntary manslaughter. Moreover, he did not object to the failure of the military judge to sua sponte give this instruction to the members. Thus, the appropriate framework for resolving this case is the doctrine of plain error. See generally Henderson v. Kibbe, 431 U.S. 145, 97 S.Ct. 1730, 52 L.Ed.2d 203 (1977). See RCM 920(f), Manual for Courts-Martial, United States, 1984.

Assuming error in the judge’s failure to sua sponte give the above…