Opinion ID: 2623326
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Instruction on other criminal activity

Text: At the penalty phase, the prosecution presented testimony and other evidence relating to seven incidents of violent criminal activity. Andrew Greene and John Rogers testified about one of them. According to their testimony, on November 28, 1986, defendant entered the Nightcap bar in Weed yelling obscenities and threatening Greene's life. When defendant reached into his own coat, Rogers pulled it off defendant's shoulders to reveal a holstered handgun that Rogers removed before calling the police. After the presentation of this evidence, the trial court met with counsel to discuss jury instructions. The trial court said that it would give CALJIC No. 8.87 (1989 rev.) (5th ed.1988) on considering violent criminal activity as an aggravating factor, and that it would include in that instruction a list of the criminal activity at issue based on the allegations in the prosecution's notice of aggravating factors and consistent with what [it understood] to have been the evidence on the subject. The trial court read the proposed instruction to counsel with no immediate objection. The discussion then moved to CALJIC No. 8.86 on the use of prior felony convictions in aggravation. Counsel for both sides agreed with the trial court's proposal to specify for the jury the two prior convictions at issue, one for robbery in 1980 and the other for the sale of methamphetamine in 1987. At this point, however, the trial court noted that on the list of violent criminal activity to be included in CALJIC No. 8.87 was the incident involving the victim of the 1980 robbery, Kiro Horiuchi, and the court expressed its concern that the jury might be led to double-count that evidence as both violent criminal activity and a prior conviction. In response to the trial court's question whether it should strike the reference to the robbery under the prior conviction instruction or strike the allegation of force and violence on Kiro Horiuchi, defense counsel suggested that the latter course would be appropriate. The trial court accepted the suggestion and deleted the reference to the victim of the 1980 robbery in CALJIC No. 8.87. The jury was instructed accordingly. [14] Defendant contends the trial court's instruction was wrong because it omitted from the list of incidents of violent criminal activity the allegation involving Andrew Greene at the Nightcap bar. He argues the trial court's instruction failed to inform the jury that it had to find that alleged incident to have occurred beyond a reasonable doubt before it could consider it in aggravation, thus violating his federal constitutional rights to due process, fair trial, trial by jury, and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. In compiling its original list of the violent incidents the jurors could consider in aggravation if they were convinced beyond a reasonable doubt the event in question had occurred, the trial court relied on the allegations in the prosecution's original notice of aggravating factors. The incident involving Greene was not included in that notice but in a later-filed supplemental notice adding that incident to the six listed on the original notice. But counsel for neither side brought the oversight to the trial court's attention. Respondent argues that because a trial court is under no obligation to specify for the jury the violent criminal activity that could be considered ( People v. Medina, supra, 11 Cal.4th at pp. 770-771, 47 Cal.Rptr.2d 165, 906 P.2d 2), it was incumbent on defense counsel to point out the omission of the Greene incident and request a more complete instruction on the subject. We agree. The instruction as given was not erroneous, only incomplete, and a party may not complain on appeal that an instruction correct in law and responsive to the evidence was too general or incomplete unless the party has requested appropriate clarifying or amplifying language. ( People v. Andrews (1989) 49 Cal.3d 200, 218, 260 Cal.Rptr. 583, 776 P.2d 285.) In any event, there is no reasonable possibility the jury at the penalty phase misunderstood the law about its consideration of unadjudicated criminal activity. ( People v. Kelly (1992) 1 Cal.4th 495, 525-526, 3 Cal.Rptr.2d 677, 822 P.2d 385.) The trial court instructed the jury generally to consider all of the evidence which has been received during any part of the trial and to be guided by the statutory factors, including [t]he presence or absence of criminal activity by the defendant ... which involved the use or attempted use of force or violence or the express or implied threat to use force or violence.... (CALJIC No. 8.85.) That instruction was followed by CALJIC No. 8.87, which began with the agreed-upon listing of five incidents of alleged violent criminal activity. The instruction continued: Before a juror may consider any of such alleged criminal activity as an aggravating circumstance in this case, a juror must first be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did in fact commit such criminal activity. A juror may not consider any evidence of any other crime as an aggravating factor. ( Ibid., italics added.) Given the charge, the jury may have understood it was not to consider the Greene incident as a factor in aggravation because it was not any of such alleged criminal activity recounted in the instruction. If so, the omission of the Greene incident helped rather than harmed defendant. ( People v. Riel, supra, 22 Cal.4th at p. 1214, 96 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 998 P.2d 969.) But even if the jury believed it could consider evidence of the threat to Greene in the same manner as the other evidence of violent criminal activity presented by the prosecution at the penalty phase, it would also have understood that the incident could be used as a factor in aggravation only on proof beyond a reasonable doubt, as the instruction directed. Under either scenario, there is no reasonable likelihood the jury understood the instructions to mean the Greene incident could be used as a factor in aggravation whether or not the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant had engaged in that conduct. For the same reason, we reject defendant's claim that counsel's failure to bring the oversight to the trial court's attention constitutes the ineffective assistance of counsel. In a related claim, defendant asserts the trial court erred when it failed to inform the jury under CALJIC No. 8.87 that the evidence of defendant's 1980 robbery of Kiro Horiuchi could not be considered in aggravation as violent criminal activity unless it was proved beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant committed such act. He contends that although the trial court instructed the jury that the evidence could be considered for the purpose of showing defendant had suffered a prior conviction for robbery, both the testimony adduced at trial and the prosecutor's closing argument emphasized that the evidence supported a finding of defendant's use of force and violence under section 190.3, factor (b). As respondent correctly points out, however, defendant is barred from challenging the trial court's instruction because the error, if any, was invited. As we have explained, [t]he doctrine of invited error bars defendant from challenging an instruction given by the trial court when the defendant has made a `conscious and deliberate tactical choice' to request the instruction. ( People v. Lucero (2000) 23 Cal.4th 692, 723, 97 Cal. Rptr.2d 871, 3 P.3d 248; People v. Cooper (1991) 53 Cal.3d 771, 831, 281 Cal.Rptr. 90, 809 P.2d 865.) Defense counsel made a deliberate, tactical choice when, in response to the trial court's expression of concern over the possible double-counting of the evidence concerning the 1980 robbery, he suggested the reference to Kiro Horiuchi be removed from the list of alleged incidents of violent criminal activity in CALJIC No. 8.87. Defendant cannot now complain of an asserted deficiency resulting from a revision that defense counsel suggested.