Bobby v. Mitts, 563 U.S. 395 (May. 2, 2011)

In a per curiam opinion, the Court reversed a Sixth Circuit decision granting relief to a defendant on grounds that the jury instructions used in his capital trial ran afoul of Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625 (1980) (holding that the death penalty may not be imposed when the jury was not permitted to consider a verdict of guilt of a lesser-included non-capital offense, and when the evidence would have supported such a verdict). The Court concluded that the penalty phase instruction at issue was not invalid under Beck, which dealt with guilt-innocence phase instructions.