Opinion ID: 1378335
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Since the Briggs Instruction is partial, incomplete and misleading it induces the jury to apply the death penalty improperly and in violation of the Constitution.

Text: In addition to confusing the jury with irrelevant information, the Briggs Instruction misleads the jurors by telling them only half the story. [21] They are informed that if a sentence of life without possibility of parole is imposed, that sentence may in the future be commuted or modified by the Governor to a lesser sentence which includes the possibility of parole. The jury is not informed that a sentence of death may be similarly commuted or modified. The implication which results from this omission is clear: a sentence of life without possibility of parole does not mean incarceration for life; it may be commuted or modified. Thus the only way to be sure that the defendant is never again let loose upon society to repeat his vicious crime is to impose a sentence of death. The danger of the Briggs Instruction, and the misleading inferences which may be drawn from it, finds ample illustration in the facts of the instant case. The instruction enabled the prosecutor to argue to the jury as follows: When the death penalty was voted in there were certain considerations that the jurors were going to be asked to take into account and to weigh them, and if the scale went one way it was appropriate for the death penalty and if it goes the other way then it's appropriate for life without parole, which does not quite mean that, and we'll get to that when we describe the instructions. (Italics added.) The instruction also encouraged the prosecutor to elicit some particularly prejudicial testimony on cross-examination from Dr. Sheffner, the defense psychiatrist. The prosecutor first asked the doctor whether the appellant was aware of the possibility of parole by way of a gubernatorial commutation, were he to receive a sentence of life imprisonment. The doctor replied that appellant was aware of the possibility, although he viewed the chances as rather remote. The prosecutor then inquired as to the defendant's state of mind were he to be released on parole after 10 or 20 years in prison. (30) (See fn. 22.) The doctor testified that defendant answered that he would probably have built up within himself such feelings of anger and frustration that he would attempt to take revenge on anyone involved in the trial, including the district attorney who prosecuted the case, the judge who presided over it, and the jurors who voted to convict him. [22] Thus, the jurors in this case were not only misled in the abstract; they were given a very personal motive to insure that defendant was never released. And the Briggs Instruction through its misleading implication suggested that the only way to attain this permanent result was a sentence of death. [23] (29b) Decisions of the United States Supreme Court hold that procedures biased in favor of the death penalty cannot withstand constitutional challenge; the Briggs Instruction results in the scales of justice being tipped toward death. In Witherspoon v. Illinois (1968) 391 U.S. 510 [20 L.Ed.2d 776, 88 S.Ct. 1770], the court stated that [o]ne of [the basic requirements of procedural fairness] is that the decision whether a man deserves to die must be made on scales that are not deliberately tipped toward death. ( Id., at pp. 521-522, fn. 20 [20 L.Ed.2d at p. 785].) The court concluded: The State of Illinois has stacked the deck against the petitioner. To execute this death sentence would deprive him of his life without due process of law. ( Id., at p. 523 [20 L.Ed.2d at pp. 785-786].) A death penalty that rests upon considerations or information improperly received by the trial court denies to defendant due process of law. Thus in Gardner v. Florida, supra, 430 U.S. 349 the Supreme Court was confronted with a death penalty case in which the trial judge stated that he relied in part on information in a presentence investigation report, including confidential information which was not disclosed to counsel for the parties. The court pointed out the two factors that led to its reversal of the judgment: First ... [i]t is of vital importance to the defendant and to the community that any decision to impose the death sentence be, and appear to be, based on reason rather than caprice or emotion. [¶] Second, it is now clear that the sentencing process, as well as the trial itself, must satisfy the requirements of the Due Process Clause. Holding that the record must disclose to the reviewing court the considerations which motivated the death sentence, the court held, Without full disclosure of the basis for the death sentence, the Florida capital-sentencing procedure would be subject to the defects which resulted in the holding of unconstitutionality in Furman v. Georgia. This deliberation by the trial judge based upon considerations improperly introduced vitiated the judgment because it violated the guarantees of due process of law. Although the information denied to the defendant in Gardner was concededly relevant and presumptively reliable (430 U.S. at p. 359 [51 L.Ed.2d at p. 403]), we deal in the instant case with information which is concededly irrelevant and clearly unreliable. Basing the finding of death upon such irrelevant and unreliable considerations the Briggs Instruction biases the jury in favor of death and stacks the deck against defendant. To uphold a death sentence predicated on this type of procedure would violate Witherspoon, vitiate Gardner, and make a mockery of defendant's protection of due process of law. In an attempted answer to these solid objections to the Briggs Instruction the People urge that the instruction neither leads to misunderstanding nor works any effect at all. The People point out that the jury does not enjoy an unlimited discretion in determining whether to impose death or life without possibility of parole, but are instructed to consider ... the applicable aggravating and mitigating circumstances, to weigh them and to reach a decision based on such findings. The People therefore would dismiss as in no way a factor the specific instruction that the governor is empowered to grant a reprieve, pardon or commutation and that under this power, a Governor may in the future commute or modify a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole to a lesser sentence. The People go so far as to assert that the jury was impliedly told not to consider this instruction as to the Governor's power, and that the instruction as to aggravating and mitigating circumstances somehow obliterates the instructions as to the Governor's powers. Yet the offending instruction is the penultimate instruction in a lengthy exposition of mitigating and aggravating factors, and strongly remains in the minds of the jurors in deciding upon death or parole. The jurors are informed at this crucial point that the only way to keep the offender off the streets is to liquidate him. Yet, says the People, the jurors do not consider this factor in reaching their decision! The People would apparently erase this last and potent thrust toward the penalty of death on the grounds that the jurors are instructed to consider other instructions in addition to the Briggs Instruction and that, in any event, the jurors may already be aware of the Governor's commutation power. In short, the People argue that the Briggs Instruction serves merely to tell the jurors what they already know, and has little, if any, effect on their deliberation and decision. We question the premises on which this argument rests; we do not believe that jurors are generally aware of the scope of the Governor's commutation power, or that the jury instructions on aggravation and mitigation will necessarily nullify the harm done by the Briggs Instruction. Indeed, the People's argument is belied by the history of the Briggs Instruction: surely, the draftsmen would not have taken the extraordinary step of commanding trial courts to give a specific instruction if they believed the instruction would have no significant effect whatsoever on the verdict. We therefore hold that the Briggs Instruction constitutes a dual violation of defendant's due process rights as guaranteed by the Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. [24] By encouraging the jury to consider an irrelevant and confusing factor in their deliberations, the instruction reduces the reliability of any resulting sentencing determination. This vice is compounded by the practical effect of the instruction in biasing the jury in favor of the death penalty by suggesting  totally incorrectly  that the only way that the jury can ensure that the convicted defendant will not be released from custody through the Governor's commutation power is by imposing a sentence of death. Although the dissent perceives no harm to the defendant from the incomplete and misleading Briggs Instruction, we find it unquestionably prejudicial. A juror who is faced with a choice of a verdict of life without possibility of parole or of death and who is troubled by the fortuity that the defendant may be released by a commutation or pardon granted by the Governor, is told by the judge that such release can indeed occur if the juror selects life without possibility of parole. Under the Briggs Instruction, however, the judge does not tell the juror that such release can also occur if the juror selects a sentence of death. Thus, a juror who is concerned about the effects of a possible commutation or pardon could reasonably, but erroneously, conclude from the Briggs Instruction that the only way to prevent such a commutation or pardon is to return a verdict of death. Thus, the instruction through a deception may lead a juror to vote for death although the juror believes that the verdict should be lifetime confinement in prison. In short, the instruction erroneously, deceptively and unconstitutionally tilts the verdict toward death. Finally, the dissent contends that a ruling of this court that the death penalty not be inflicted unless constitutionally rendered would impose too great a burden upon the judicial system. To do so might cause a number of decisions to be reversed. But the Briggs Instruction affects only penalty trials, not trials determining a defendant's guilt, and the guilt trials entail the greatest expenditure of time and money. In any event, conjectures as to the burden of retrials are speculative; we do not know what instructions were given in these cases and we do not know whether the instructions as actually rendered were proper. Surely, if the State of California exacts the death penalty, it has no license to take a human life based upon an improper and unconstitutional verdict of death. A human life cannot be balanced against the costs to the state of conducting a fair trial. If the state is to execute an individual, it must not do so on the basis of a verdict of death tainted by a misleading, deceptive, unconstitutional instruction, but upon a proceeding that clearly complies with due process of law. The judgment is reversed insofar as it relates to penalty. In all other respects the judgment is affirmed.