Opinion ID: 410972
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Exclusion of Testimony at Sentencing Trial

Text: 63 Harris contends that the court erred in refusing to admit the testimonies of a former warden of San Quentin and of a television correspondent. His avowed purpose was to provide the jury with an understanding of some of the differences between life imprisonment and a death sentence, to explain how the death penalty is carried out, and to vividly portray to the jury the last few moments of a person who has been sentenced to death in the gas chamber. Harris argues that evidence of the nature of the possible sentence is relevant and crucial to whether the death sentence is appropriate. 64 In Gregg v. Georgia, a plurality of the Supreme Court, commented that: 65 [s]o long as the evidence introduced and arguments made at the presentence hearing do not prejudice a defendant, it is preferable not to impose restrictions. We think it is desirable for the jury to have as much information before it as possible when it makes the sentencing decision. 66 428 U.S. at 203-04, 96 S.Ct. at 2939. We read this language as referring to the trier's need, at the sentencing stage, for information on the defendant's character, the nature of the crime, and past acts--information which may be too prejudicial for consideration at the guilt phase--and not for information on the nature of the proposed penalty. 67 Our reading is consistent with the plurality opinion in Lockett v. Ohio, which states that 68 the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments require the sentencer, in all but the rarest kind of capital case, not be precluded from considering, as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant's character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death. 69 438 U.S. at 604, 98 S.Ct. at 2964 (emphasis in original) (footnotes omitted). There, the plurality specifically added that nothing in the opinion limited the traditional authority of a court to exclude, as irrelevant, evidence not bearing on the defendant's character, prior record, or the circumstances of the offense. Id. at 604 n.12, 98 S.Ct. at 2964 n.12. We conclude, therefore, that the trial court did not err in refusing to admit the proffered testimony explaining how the death penalty is carried out. Such evidence did not bear on the defendant's character, prior record, or the circumstances of the offense.