Opinion ID: 2639471
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Prosecutorial Misconduct During the Penalty Phase Argument

Text: Defendant contends that the prosecutor's penalty phase closing argument constituted misconduct because it improperly appealed to the jury's passions. Because there was no objection or request for admonishment, defendant is deemed to have forfeited the objection and the point cannot be raised on appeal. ( People v. Medina (1995) 11 Cal.4th 694, 775-776, 47 Cal.Rptr.2d 165, 906 P.2d 2 ( Medina ).) In any event, this argument is without merit. The prosecutor made allusions to the fact that the three girls would never again hear a bird sing, see a sunset, taste an apple, a cup of coffee or a Coca Cola, walk in the spring rain, learn that the world perhaps does have a place for each of them, hold a hand, or put a key in the door and have one say: Are you home? As we stated in Haskett, supra, 30 Cal.3d at page 863, 180 Cal.Rptr. 640, 640 P.2d 776, in which the prosecutor, in his penalty phase argument, invited the jurors to put themselves in the [victim's] shoes: [A]t the penalty phase the jury decides a question, the resolution of which turns not only on the facts, but on a jury's moral assessment of those facts as they reflect on whether the defendant should be put to death. It is not only appropriate, but necessary, that the jury weigh the sympathetic elements of defendant's background against those that may offend the conscience. We followed Haskett in Medina, supra, 11 Cal.4th at page 777, 47 Cal.Rptr.2d 165, 906 P.2d 2, in which the prosecutor, during the penalty phase, argued to the jury the terror the victim must have felt while lying on the ground awaiting execution. What we stated in Medina applies here as well: [T]he prosecutor's argument did not exceed the bounds of propriety. ( Id. at p. 778, 47 Cal.Rptr.2d 165, 906 P.2d 2.)