Opinion ID: 2518586
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Instruction on mental disorder and voluntary intoxication

Text: Defendant contends the trial court erred in instructing the jury, pursuant to CALJIC No. 3.36, that it could consider defendant's evidence of mental illness and voluntary intoxication in deciding whether he had formed any mental state or intent required by the charged offenses. [11] He argues that, having failed to instruct on involuntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of murder, apparently because it had determined that defendant's evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to raise a reasonable doubt as to whether defendant had acted with malice (see pt. II.B.3.a., ante ), the trial court should have modified the instruction to make clear that the defense evidence of intoxication and mental disorder was relevant to whether he premeditated and deliberated the killings, but not to whether he acted with express or implied malice, and that the failure to do so rendered the instructions confusing and contradictory. Defendant argues the prosecutor prejudicially exploited this asserted error in his closing argument by suggesting to the jury there was no reason why the evidence would affect defendant's ability to premeditate and deliberate, yet not affect his ability to form malice. Defendant asserts the instruction, exacerbated by the prosecutor's closing argument, violated the federal Constitution, as well as state law, because it so infected the entire trial that the resulting conviction violated due process ( Estelle v. McGuire (1991) 502 U.S. 62, 72, 112 S.Ct. 475, 116 L.Ed.2d 385) and deprived him of a reliable guilt phase verdict as a proper basis for the imposition of the death sentence. The Attorney General first contends that by expressly assenting to the giving of the instruction and failing to request clarification, defendant failed to preserve the claimed error. ( People v. Lewis (2001) 26 Cal.4th 334, 380, 110 Cal.Rptr.2d 272, 28 P.3d 34.) Defendant asserts the record does not demonstrate that his counsel acquiesced in the instruction, and even if it did, the trial court nevertheless had a duty to instruct the jury correctly (see People v. Castillo (1997) 16 Cal.4th 1009, 1015, 68 Cal.Rptr.2d 648, 945 P.2d 1197), a duty that could be negated only if counsel invited the error, which he did not do here. Assuming for the sake of argument the claim of instructional error is preserved for appeal, it nevertheless lacks merit. The essence of defendant's argument is not so much that the instruction itself was erroneous, but that, in view of the trial court's refusal to instruct on voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, the instruction might have confused the jury. We see no such potential for confusion. The modified instruction clearly did not preclude the jury from considering defendant's evidence of mental disorder and intoxication on the question whether he acted with premeditation and deliberation, the mental states, in the language of the instruction, to which the defense had directed its presentation of such evidence. Nor did it prevent defense counsel from arguing the jury should consider such evidence only on that question (in closing argument defense counsel did tie the evidence to the issue of premeditation and deliberation, while essentially conceding malice), or from responding to the prosecutor's argument that the evidence logically would have the same effect on malice aforethought as on premeditation and deliberation. And, as the Attorney General further contends, by failing to object to the prosecutor's argument and request an admonition, defendant forfeited any claim the argument was misleading. In sum, the instruction violated neither state law nor the federal Constitution.