Opinion ID: 1442323
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Court's Inadequate Responses

Text: As previously indicated, some of the jurors' inquiries concerned the status, privileges and potential for release of a prisoner serving a sentence of life without possibility of parole. Responding to the potential for release, the court stated that Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole means exactly that, admonishing the jurors not to assume anything other than death means death by execution in the gas chamber; life without possibility of parole means imprisonment for the rest of his natural life. Defendant does not suggest the court's response was inadequate or improper in any way. (See, e.g., People v. Caro (1988) 46 Cal.3d 1035, 1064-1065 [251 Cal. Rptr. 757, 761 P.2d 680].) (29) In response to the jury's other inquiries, however, the court stated in essence that no evidence had been received on these points, and no one was available to testify competently about them. Defendant argues this response, though technically correct, was inadequate, failing to constitute a firm reiteration that LWOP [life imprisonment without parole] meant LWOP and that there was nothing in the law or in the way the state prison system operated that ameliorated the LWOP sentence. We disagree. The court's response essentially advised the jury not to speculate regarding the possible privileges and conditions of prison confinement. In light of the court's additional response to the basic question whether defendant might someday be released to society, the jury could not possibly have been misled in the matter.