Opinion ID: 1351576
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Claim of Error on Refusal to Instruct on Certain Specific Mitigating Circumstances

Text: Defendant requested the court to instruct the jury as follows. You may consider as further mitigating factors, the following facts or circumstances:

(i) Richard Benson confessed in detail as to what he did and cooperated with the detectives of the District Attorney's Office and investigators of the San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Department as to his involvement. (j) That in his lengthy confession, Richard Benson repeatedly expressed remorse for his crimes. (k) Any other circumstance or circumstances arising form [ sic ] the evidence which you, the jury, deem to have mitigating value. Subsequently, defendant withdrew his request as to factor (j), which dealt with remorse. Determining that the instruction proposed was substantially argumentative, the court denied the request and refused to charge the jury accordingly. Defendant contends that the court erred. We do not agree. (29) A court may  and, indeed, must  refuse an instruction that is argumentative, i.e., of such a character as to invite the jury to draw inferences favorable to one of the parties from specified items of evidence. ( People v. Gordon, supra, 50 Cal.3d at p. 1276.) As noted, the court determined the instruction was in fact substantially argumentative. We need not resolve the question of the appropriate standard of review. Under any standard, the court's conclusion was plainly sound. (Compare ibid. [holding proper the refusal of a similar instruction on the same ground]; People v. Williams (1988) 45 Cal.3d 1268, 1323-1324 [248 Cal. Rptr. 834, 756 P.2d 221] [same].) [12] Defendant claims the court did indeed err by refusing the requested instruction. He argues he was entitled to the instruction under People v. Sears (1970) 2 Cal.3d 180, 189-190 [84 Cal. Rptr. 711, 465 P.2d 847]. He is wrong. Under Sears [a criminal defendant] ha[s] a `right to an instruction that pinpoint[s] the theory of the defense.' ( People v. Gordon, supra, 50 Cal.3d at p. 1276, italics in original.) The instruction here did not do so. (Compare ibid. [holding proper the refusal of a similar instruction on the same ground]; People v. Howard (1988) 44 Cal.3d 375, 442 [243 Cal. Rptr. 842, 749 P.2d 279] [same].) Defendant also argues he was entitled to the requested instruction under the cruel and unusual punishments clause of the Eighth Amendment as construed in Lockett v. Ohio, supra, 438 U.S. 586, and its progeny. Again he is wrong. Under those cases [a criminal defendant] ha[s] a right to `clear instructions which not only do not preclude consideration of mitigating factors, [citation], but which also guid[e] and focu[s] the jury's objective consideration of the particularized circumstances of the individual offense and the individual offender ... [citation].' ( People v. Gordon, supra, 50 Cal.3d at p. 1277.) Defendant received such instructions. But under those cases [a criminal defendant does] not have a right to an instruction  like the one here  that invites the jury to draw favorable inferences from the evidence. ( Ibid.; see People v. Howard, supra, 44 Cal.3d at pp. 442-443.) Finally, defendant argues he was entitled to the requested instruction under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. He maintains: he had a state created entitlement to such an instruction under Sears; by refusing his request, the court arbitrarily denied him that entitlement and thereby violated due process. We are not persuaded. As explained above, he had no such state created entitlement under Sears. He also maintains the court assertedly gave a pinpoint instruction favorable to the prosecution; by refusing his request for a similar instruction favorable to the defense, it created an imbalance of forces between the accused and his accuser offensive to due process. Again, we are not persuaded. There was no imbalance attributable to pinpoint instructions: no such instructions were given. (Compare People v. Gordon, supra, 50 Cal.3d at p. 1277, fn. 15 [finding a similar argument unpersuasive].)