Opinion ID: 1113193
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 34

Heading: Dual use of aggravating evidence.

Text: Among other things, section 190.3 requires the penalty jury to consider [t]he circumstances of the crime for which the defendant was convicted in the present proceeding (factor (a)), [t]he presence or absence of [violent] criminal activity by the defendant (factor (b)), and [t]he presence or absence of any prior felony conviction (factor (c)). (39) Though the statute is not express on the point, we have observed that factor (a) obviously pertains to crimes of which defendant was convicted in the capital proceeding, while factors (b) and (c) pertain only to other crimes by the defendant. (E.g., People v. Ashmus (1991) 54 Cal.3d 932, 998 [2 Cal. Rptr.2d 112, 820 P.2d 214]; People v. Miranda, supra, 44 Cal.3d 57, 106.) (40) The instant jury was instructed without elaboration in the statutory language. (CALJIC No. 8.84.1.) Defendant claims the trial court erred prejudicially by failing to clarify, sua sponte, the proper separation among factors (a), (b), and (c), thus permitting duplicative multiple consideration of the same aggravating evidence under all these factors. In People v. Miranda, supra , which was decided after this trial, we directed that clarifying instructions be given in future cases to avoid any possible confusion. (44 Cal.3d at p. 106, fn. 28.) However, we have consistently found that the absence of a clarifying instruction on this issue is harmless. As we have explained, factors (a), (b), and (c), taken together, allow the jury to consider all the offenses of which defendant was convicted in the current proceeding, [33] all his other criminal violence, and all his felony convictions entered before the capital crime was committed. Yet nothing in the statute or parallel instructions implies that any of these matters may be considered more than once. Hence, even if one or more jurors mistakenly consider a particular criminal incident under the wrong factor, there is little risk that a reasonable jury will give a single incident duplicative consideration. ( Ashmus, supra, 54 Cal.3d at p. 998.) [34] Defendant claims the prosecutor's argument encouraged dual use, but we see no such implication. The prosecutor thoroughly covered all relevant aspects of defendant's criminal record. He properly urged that the current crimes, including the Mankin robbery, were the culmination of a violent history. Though he displayed occasional uncertainty about which factor or factors applied to particular evidence, he never urged the jurors to consider the same aggravating aspect of defendant's behavior or history more than once. [35] Defendant emphasizes that on several occasions, the prosecutor invited the jurors to count, rather than weigh, the aggravating factors. [36] This, he urges, exacerbated the danger of improper dual use of aggravating evidence. However, the court carefully instructed the jury that it must undertake subjective weighing, rather than mechanical counting, in order to reach the appropriate penalty. The bulk of both counsels' arguments focused on this issue. We have routinely disapproved counting references, and we do so here. However, there is no reasonable likelihood this jury was misled.