Opinion ID: 1172140
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Consideration at Penalty Phase of Defendant's Use of Racial Epithets

Text: (9) At the penalty phase of defendant's capital trial, the trial court gave the jury a standard instruction telling it that it could consider the evidence presented at the guilt phase as well as that introduced at the penalty phase. (See CALJIC No. 8.85 (5th ed. 1988).) Defendant argues the instruction was erroneous because it permitted the jury to consider at the penalty phase the three instances of his use of racial epithets discussed in part II.D., ante. According to defendant, the jury's consideration of the racial epithets at the penalty phase biased the jurors against him and caused them to use the epithets as evidence in aggravation, thereby violating three separate provisions of the federal Constitution. He contends that his death sentence violated the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as well as depriving him of his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process, because the epithets biased the jury and were used by the jury as a nonstatutory aggravating factor. He also contends that admission of the epithets caused the jury, in violation of the First Amendment to the federal Constitution, to punish him for exercising his right of free speech. Defendant failed to preserve these arguments for appeal, for he requested that the trial court instruct the jury it could consider the guilt phase evidence and did not seek a limiting instruction directing the jury not to consider the racial epithets at the penalty phase. (See People v. Cooper (1991) 53 Cal.3d 771, 827 [281 Cal. Rptr. 90, 809 P.2d 865].) In any event, defendant's claims lack merit. The jury was not given free rein to use the guilt phase evidence without restriction as a factor in aggravation supporting death as the penalty. It also received other instructions informing it that all the evidence presented, whether at the guilt phase or the penalty phase, must be evaluated according to the statutory list of aggravating and mitigating factors set out in Penal Code section 190.3. These factors do not permit racial bias to be considered as an aggravating factor; they do, however, permit the jury to consider the circumstances of the crime (Pen. Code, § 190.3, factor (a)). For the reasons set forth in part II.D., ante, the evidence was relevant to one of the circumstances of the crime, defendant's motivation, and thus was properly presented to the jury. (See People v. McPeters (1992) 2 Cal.4th 1148, 1189 [9 Cal. Rptr.2d 834, 832 P.2d 146].) Nor is there any reason to believe that the jury's death penalty verdict reflected any bias against defendant for his use of racial epithets or an erroneous belief that a defendant's racial prejudice in the abstract could be considered as an aggravating factor. The racial epithets were not called to the jury's attention in the penalty phase. There was no reference in the penalty phase testimony or in the prosecution's penalty phase argument to defendant's use of racial epithets. [3] Thus, there is no merit to defendant's contention that admission of the epithets at the penalty phase violated his rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Nor did the admission of the epithets at the penalty phase violate defendant's First Amendment rights. As explained in part II.D., ante , the United States Supreme Court has held that evidence concerning one's beliefs, including evidence of racial intolerance, is admissible at the penalty phase if it is relevant. ( Dawson v. Delaware, supra, 503 U.S. at p. 165 [112 S.Ct. at pp. 1097-1098]; Barclay v. Florida, supra, 463 U.S. at p. 949 [103 S.Ct. at p. 3424] [The United States Constitution does not prohibit a trial judge from taking into account the elements of racial hatred in this murder.].)