Opinion ID: 1359265
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Jury's Consideration of Mitigating Evidence

Text: (33) Defendants argue that the trial court's instruction to the jury describing the circumstances in aggravation and mitigation did not adequately inform the jury that it could consider the mitigating evidence presented at the penalty phase. As they point out, the United States Supreme Court has held that at the penalty phase of a capital case, the jury must be permitted to consider `any aspect of a defendant's character or record ... that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death.' ( Eddings v. Oklahoma (1982) 455 U.S. 104, 110 [71 L.Ed.2d 1, 8, 102 S.Ct. 869].) In this case, the trial court instructed the jury that it could consider: (k) Any other circumstance which extenuates the gravity of the crime, even though it is not a legal excuse for the crime. The United States Supreme Court has held that this instruction is not, in and of itself, constitutionally inadequate. ( Boyde v. California (1990) 494 U.S. 370 [108 L.Ed.2d 316, 110 S.Ct. 1190].) But in People v. Easley (1983) 34 Cal.3d 858 [196 Cal. Rptr. 309, 671 P.2d 813], decided after the trial in this case, we directed that trial courts should, to avoid confusion, instruct the jury that it may consider any other `aspect of [the] defendant's character or record ... that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death.' ( Id. at p. 878, fn. 10.) In cases that, like this one, were tried before our decision in Easley, we examine the record to determine whether, in context, the sentencer may have been misled to defendant's prejudice about the scope of its sentencing discretion.... ( People v. Brown (1985) 40 Cal.3d 512, 544, fn. 17 [220 Cal. Rptr. 637, 709 P.2d 440]; see also People v. Payton (1992) 3 Cal.4th 1050, 1071 [13 Cal. Rptr.2d 526, 839 P.2d 1035].) Having reviewed the record in this case, we see no reason to conclude that the jury was misled regarding the scope of its sentencing discretion. In his closing argument, the prosecutor never suggested that the jury could not consider the mitigating evidence. To the contrary, the prosecutor specifically informed the jury that it could consider any evidence of mitigation, not only surrounding the crime itself, but about [defendants'] lives in general. The prosecutor then discussed the evidence in mitigation offered by defendants, and argued, in essence, that this evidence was inadequate to outweigh the evidence in aggravation offered by the prosecution. We find no reasonable possibility that the jury was misled into believing that it could not consider defendants' mitigating evidence.