State of Arizona, Appellee v. Tracie Renee Geeslin, Aka Traci Renee Fernandez-Geeslin, Appellant

Summary

The court held that the court of appeals improperly declined to reach the merits of the defendant's challenge to the denial of a lesser-included-offense instruction merely because the requested instruction was absent from the appellate record. Because the trial judge expressly stated that the instruction was denied on a legal ground and the existing record contained the materials necessary to review that ruling, the court vacated the relevant paragraphs and remanded. The opinion contains no separate writings.