Opinion ID: 1386250
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Trial Court's Refusal of Instructions Requested by the Defense

Text: (30) The trial court refused to give this instruction requested by defense counsel: If you have a reasonable doubt as to which penalty to impose, death or life in prison without the possibility of parole, you must give the defendant the benefit of that doubt and return a verdict fixing the penalty at life in prison without the possibility of parole. As defendant concedes, we have held that such an instruction is not constitutionally compelled. ( People v. Melton, supra, 44 Cal.3d 713, 762-763; People v. Williams (1988) 44 Cal.3d 883, 960-961 [245 Cal. Rptr. 336, 751 P.2d 395]; People v. Rodriguez, supra, 42 Cal.3d 730, 777-779.) Nevertheless, citing Adamson v. Ricketts (9th Cir.1988) 865 F.2d 1011, defendant contends that the instruction was required, reasoning that a death penalty statute may not constitutionally place the burden on the defendant to prove that the mitigating circumstances outweigh those in aggravation. Recently, in People v. Duncan (1991) 53 Cal.3d 955, 979 [281 Cal. Rptr. 273, 810 P.2d 131], we rejected a similar argument, noting that the continuing vitality of Adamson seems doubtful after the United States Supreme Court's decision in Blystone v. Pennsylvania (1990) 494 U.S. 299, 305 [108 L.Ed.2d 255, 263, 110 S.Ct. 1078]. Defendant also contends that the trial court's refusal to give his proposed instruction violated principles of equal protection by allowing the jury to decide that death is the appropriate penalty without proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard required in jury determinations regarding less protected interests, such as commitment as a mentally disordered sex offender (see People v. Feagley (1975) 14 Cal.3d 338, 345 [121 Cal. Rptr. 509, 535 P.2d 373]). We rejected this same argument in People v. Robertson, supra, 48 Cal.3d 18, 63, stating that the jury's role in fact-finding proceedings, such as the one defendant proposes, is not analogous to its moral and normative sentencing function in a death penalty case. ( Ibid., citation omitted.) (31) Defendant further faults the trial court for its refusal to instruct the jury not to consider deterrence or cost in reaching its penalty decision. [14] In People v. Thompson (1988) 45 Cal.3d 86, 132 [246 Cal. Rptr. 245, 753 P.2d 37], we said it would not be error to give this instruction to forestall consideration of deterrence or cost.... Because no emphasis had been placed on those considerations, we concluded that the trial court's refusal to give the instruction was not prejudicial. ( Ibid. ) This is also true here. Although the prosecutor mentioned that defendant was 22 at the time of the murders, she did so to emphasize his adulthood and to point out that here age was not a circumstance in mitigation under section 190.3, factor (i). She did not exploit defendant's age to suggest that his imprisonment for life without possibility of parole would be costly. On these facts, the trial court's failure to give the requested instruction did not prejudice defendant.