Opinion ID: 1351466
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Brown and Caldwell Error

Text: (52) Defendant asserts that the prosecutor's closing argument, combined with an erroneous jury instruction, misled the jury as to its sentencing responsibility. Specifically, he contends that the jury was led to believe that its sole task was to determine whether the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances and, if so, to vote for death. Defendant also urges the related point that the jurors, so instructed, were erroneously made to feel they did not bear ultimate responsibility for sentencing, but that the sentence was determined by the law. While there is superficial support for defendant's position, a reading of the entire record leads us to reject these arguments. In People v. Brown, supra, 40 Cal.3d 512, 538-544, reversed on other grounds sub nom. California v. Brown (1987) 479 U.S. 538 [93 L.Ed.2d 934, 107 S.Ct. 837] (hereafter Brown ), we recognized that to instruct in terms of the mandatory language of section 190.3, as embodied in former CALJIC No. 8.84.2, [9] could lead the jurors to mistakenly believe that their obligation was to mechanically weigh the aggravating and mitigating factors and arrive at a penalty verdict accordingly. As we explained in People v. Allen (1986) 42 Cal.3d 1222, 1276-1280 [232 Cal. Rptr. 849, 729 P.2d 115], Brown recognized that the instruction could lead the jury into two types of error: (1) misleading the jury to believe that the weighing process is a mechanical counting of factors; and (2) misleading the jury to believe that the result of the weighing of factors determines the verdict, without regard to the jurors' personal assessment that the penalty is appropriate ... under all circumstances. ( Id. at p. 1277.) As we further explained in Brown ( supra, 40 Cal.3d 512), the reason for construing section 190.3 to require jury determination of appropriateness stems from the unique nature of the capital sentencing process. A jury that is asked merely to weigh aggravating and mitigating circumstances may believe it is being asked to balance what is good and bad about a defendant. But, It would be rare indeed to find mitigating evidence which could redeem ... an offender [convicted of first degree murder with special circumstances] or excuse his conduct in the abstract. ( People v. Brown, supra, 40 Cal.3d at p. 542, fn. 13.) The jury must be made to understand, rather, that it is not determining whether there is more good than bad in the defendant, but whether the `bad' evidence is so substantial in comparison with the `good' that it warrants death instead of life without parole.  ( Ibid., italics in original.) Instructing the jury that it must determine the appropriateness of the death sentence in all the circumstances clarifies the true nature of the jury's decision as a choice between the law's ultimate and penultimate penalties. In People v. Milner, supra, 45 Cal.3d 227, 253-258, we recognized the interaction between Brown error and the constitutional error identified in Caldwell v. Mississippi (1985) 472 U.S. 320 [86 L.Ed.2d 231, 105 S.Ct. 2633] (hereafter Caldwell ). Caldwell held it was constitutionally impermissible to rest a death sentence on a determination made by a sentencer who has been led to believe that the responsibility for determining the appropriateness of defendant's death rests elsewhere. ( Id. at pp. 328-329 [80 L.Ed.2d at p. 239].) In Milner the court recognized that under a certain variant of Brown error prosecutors might not only mislead jurors into believing they do not need to determine the appropriateness of death, but might further lead them to believe it is not they but the law that bears the ultimate responsibility for determining the sentence. Thus, in Milner we found Caldwell error when the prosecutor assured the jurors again and again that they did not have to `shoulder the burden of personal responsibility,' told them again and again that the law `protects' them from deciding what is `just and right,' and even encouraged them to `hide' behind the law. ( People v. Milner, supra, 45 Cal.3d at p. 257.) In determining whether Brown or Caldwell error has occurred, We do not reach our conclusion based on any single statement uttered by the prosecutor. Rather, we consider the instructions of the court and the arguments of both prosecutor and defense counsel. ( People v. Milner, supra, 45 Cal.3d at p. 257.) We look especially to the structure of the prosecution's argument, i.e., the extent to which the prosecutor emphasized the mandatory and automatic nature of the sentencing function, versus the prosecutor's emphasis on the discretionary nature of the jury's task. (See, e.g., People v. Farmer (1989) 47 Cal.3d 888, 924-933 [254 Cal. Rptr. 508, 765 P.2d 940] (lead opn. and separate conc. opn. of Eagleson, J.; People v. Hendricks (1989) 44 Cal.3d 635, 650 [244 Cal. Rptr. 181, 749 P.2d 836].) Thus, in some cases we have found that prosecutorial emphasis on each juror's discretion in assigning weights to the aggravating and mitigating factors was itself sufficient to offset contrary prosecutorial arguments that stressed confinement of jury discretion or lack of jury responsibility. (See, e.g., People v. Lang, supra, 49 Cal.3d 991, 1033-1035; People v. Hendricks, supra, 44 Cal.3d 635, 652-653.) In other cases we have held that even when prosecutorial argument concedes that jurors have discretion in the weighing process, the argument's emphasis on the compulsory nature of section 190.3 or the lack of jury responsibility may be so strong as to overwhelm such ameliorative language. (See, e.g., People v. Farmer, supra, 47 Cal.3d 888, 924-933 (lead opn. and separate conc. opn. of Eagleson, J.); People v. Milner, supra, 45 Cal.3d 227, 254-256.) In the present case defendant points to several statements made by the prosecutor that he contends support a finding of both Brown and Caldwell error. One such statement came after the prosecutor had read the first part of the former CALJIC No. 8.84.2  i.e., If you conclude that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances, you shall impose a sentence of death  emphasizing the words shall impose a sentence of death. The prosecutor then stated: You do not have the discretion. Once you have made the weighing process and formed in your own mind the weight to be given to these aggravating and mitigating factors, under this law you have taken an oath to uphold it is your duty to return a verdict of death. Then, reading the second part of CALJIC No. 8.84.2, pertaining to mitigating circumstances that equal or outweigh aggravating circumstances, the prosecutor stated: In other words, the law says you shall, once you have done this weighing process  finding the mitigating circumstances equal or outweigh the aggravating circumstances  even if you feel `I'd like to vote for the death penalty,' you cannot and you must not, because the law says you shall impose life without possibility of parole. The prosecutor next read an instruction emphasizing each juror's discretion in assigning the weight to be given to each of the aggravating and mitigating factors, and concluded: But once you have assigned the weight to these factors and then decide which outweighs the other or if they're equally balanced, the law tells you what the verdict is. In contrast to these statements, however, the prosecutor also stressed juror discretion at several points. First, as mentioned, he emphasized each juror's discretion to assign weights to the aggravating and mitigating factors: You are instructed that you may return a verdict of life without possibility of parole even though you should find the presence of one or more aggravating circumstances. Any mitigating circumstance standing alone may be sufficient for you to return a verdict of life without possibility of parole, provided that the mitigating circumstance or circumstances equals or outweighs the aggravating circumstances. You assign the weight to these factors. That is your decision. Moreover, at the close of his argument, instead of returning to the theme of section 190.3's mandatory nature, the prosecutor emphasized and expanded on the overall discretionary aspect of the jury's sentencing decision. In the context of a discussion of the role of lingering doubt, the prosecutor made the following statement: But I'll tell you. If you don't feel that confident in your own mind that you could live with yourself with a verdict of death, then vote for life without parole. I want you to be confident and comfortable, not in the sense that you get any pleasure out of voting for death  who could?  but comfortable in the sense that it is the right verdict. This statement, with its sweeping language, could well be understood to transcend its particular context. Although the prosecutor was arguing at that point that the jurors should choose the death penalty only if they were confident that defendant was the actual murderer, they could also understand the statement to mean they should not return a verdict of death unless they were comfortable with it  in other words, unless they judged the death verdict to be appropriate in all the circumstances. Thus, the prosecutor, rather than closing his argument with a neat syllogistic conclusion that the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating and therefore the jury must choose death, instead told the jurors to consult their personal sense of the penalty's propriety. Moreover, taken as a whole, the prosecutor's statements concerning a mandatory aspect of section 190.3 were a relatively minor part of his total closing argument; most of the argument was spent in discussing the applicability of the various aggravating and mitigating factors enumerated in section 190.3. On the other hand, the prosecutor made a number of statements that reasonably led the jurors to believe they had a good deal of discretion, both in terms of assigning weight to the aggravating and mitigating factors and in terms of feeling comfortable with the verdict. Nor does the prosecutor's argument as a whole convey to the jurors that sentencing responsibility lies anywhere but with them. In these circumstances we conclude that the prosecutor's argument in its totality acknowledged jury discretion and responsibility sufficiently to escape Brown or Caldwell error. [10]