Opinion ID: 2581604
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: California Death-eligibility Process

Text: Defendant makes a number of facial challenges to the death penalty scheme in California, arguing in essence that the California death-eligibility process fails to adequately narrow the class of death-eligible defendants. None has merit. The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution ... imposes various restrictions on the use of the death penalty as a punishment for crime. One such restriction is that any legislative scheme defining criminal conduct for which death is the prescribed penalty must include some narrowing principle that channels jury discretion and provides a principled way to distinguish those cases in which the death penalty is imposed from the many cases in which it is not. A death-eligibility criterion that fails to meet this standard is deemed impermissibly vague under the Eighth Amendment. ( People v. Bacigalupo (1993) 6 Cal.4th 457, 462, 24 Cal.Rptr.2d 808, 862 P.2d 808.) Defendant argues that under California's statutory scheme, section 190.2 fails to adequately narrow the class of first degree murderers eligible for the death penalty, and that the felony-murder special circumstance, section 190.2, subdivision (a)(17), is overbroad and arbitrary because it can impose capital punishment on one who kills unintentionally. We have held otherwise. ( People v. Anderson (2001) 25 Cal.4th 543, 601, 106 Cal.Rptr.2d 575, 22 P.3d 347.) Defendant further claims that the complete discretion given to the prosecutor by California's death penalty statute to seek, or not to seek, a sentence of death violates the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment. Again, we have held otherwise. ( People v. Anderson, supra, 25 Cal.4th at p. 601, 106 Cal.Rptr.2d 575, 22 P.3d 347.) Finally, defendant contends that because sections 189 and 190.2 overlap, rendering virtually all premeditated murders death eligible, California's death penalty scheme fails to adequately perform the required narrowing function. We have repeatedly held to the contrary. ( People v. Holt (1997) 15 Cal.4th 619, 697, 63 Cal.Rptr.2d 782, 937 P.2d 213.)