Opinion ID: 2601957
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Automatic Application to Modify the Verdict

Text: Defendant argues the trial court failed to properly exercise its responsibilities under section 190.4, subdivision (e) in denying his automatic application to modify the verdict of death in violation of the statute and the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Section 190.4, subdivision (e), requires that in ruling on an automatic application to modify a death verdict, the judge shall review the evidence, consider, take into account, and be guided by the aggravating and mitigating circumstances referred to in Section 190.3, and shall make a determination as to whether the jury's findings and verdicts that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances are contrary to law or the evidence presented. The judge shall state on the record the reasons for his findings. In the present case, defendant argued to the trial court that the appropriate penalty was life in prison without the possibility of parole because defendant had performed well in prison, had been intoxicated when he committed the offense, had a low IQ and brain defects and had a problematic childhood. The trial court denied the motion, stating: Notwithstanding the best efforts that the defense was able to muster in this case, the reality is, in the court's opinion, that the mitigating factors are scant at best, the aggravation rather overwhelming. In addition, the court adopted the judgment prepared by the prosecutor, which stated, in part, that after independently reviewing the evidence and assessing the credibility of the witnesses, the court found that the jury's finding that the aggravating circumstances so substantially outweigh the mitigating circumstances so as to make death the appropriate penalty to be fully supported by the evidence and the law. (13) Defendant argues that the trial court treated the automatic motion to modify the verdict as a mere formality and had already made up its mind because the court had asked the prosecutor nearly a month earlier to prepare a judgment of death and death warrant. Defendant acknowledges that this court long ago recognized that the circumstance that a court had prepared a written statement of reasons in advance of the hearing on the automatic motion to modify the verdict does not mean that the court's views as expressed in the writing were other than tentative or that the argument was a pointless ritual, because [t]o do so does not mean that the court is unalterably bound by the writing or that it will not amend or even discard the writing if counsel's arguments persuade the court that its tentative views were incorrect. ( People v. Hayes (1990) 52 Cal.3d 577, 645 [276 Cal.Rptr. 874, 802 P.2d 376]; see People v. Seaton (2001) 26 Cal.4th 598, 695-696 [110 Cal.Rptr.2d 441, 28 P.3d 175].) Defendant contends the present case differs from Hayes because the record in this case overwhelmingly suggests the trial court had in fact prejudged the motion to modify the sentence, thereby rendering the hearing on the automatic motion a sham because the trial court did not announce that the previously prepared judgment was tentative. We do not agree. Our holding in Hayes applies fully here. The mere fact that the court asked the prosecutor to draft a judgment in advance of the hearing does not indicate that the court had already made up its mind. To the contrary, the court described the draft judgment it asked the prosecutor to prepare as a working copy that the court will in all likelihood modify. And the court was under no obligation to announce that the previously prepared judgment was tentative. ( People v. Dennis (1998) 17 Cal.4th 468, 550 [71 Cal.Rptr.2d 680, 950 P.2d 1035].) Defendant argues we should not consider the language in the judgment because after denying the automatic motion, but before reading into the record the above quoted language in the judgment, the court heard statements from the victim's parents. The claim lacks merit. The trial court already had denied the automatic motion to modify the verdict and briefly stated the reasons for that ruling before the victim's parents made their statements. There was nothing improper in thereafter reading into the record the language of the judgment that included a more detailed statement of the reasons for the court's previous ruling. ( People v. Seaton, supra, 26 Cal.4th at pp. 694-695.) Defendant also asserts that the judgment of death must be vacated because the trial court failed to state sufficient reasons for denying the automatic motion to modify the verdict. Defendant forfeited this claim by failing to object in the trial court. ( People v. Mungia (2008) 44 Cal.4th 1101, 1140-1141 [81 Cal.Rptr.3d 614].)