Opinion ID: 2633509
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 26

Heading: Lack of a Beyond a Reasonable Doubt Burden of Proof Requirement

Text: Defendant contends California's death penalty law is unconstitutional in that it does not require the penalty phase jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that individual aggravating factors exist, that the aggravating factors substantially outweigh the mitigating ones, or that death is the appropriate penalty. We have repeatedly rejected these contentions (see, e.g., People v. Snow (2003) 30 Cal.4th 43, 126, 132 Cal.Rptr.2d 271, 65 P.3d 749; People v. Kipp (2001) 26 Cal.4th 1100, 1137, 113 Cal.Rptr.2d 27, 33 P.3d 450), and defendant does not persuade us to reconsider our previous rulings. We adhere to the principle that the assessment of aggravating and mitigating circumstances required of California penalty jurors is inherently `normative, not factual' [citation] and, hence, not susceptible to a burden of proof quantification. ( People v. Hawthorne (1992) 4 Cal.4th 43, 79, 14 Cal. Rptr.2d 133, 841 P.2d 118.) With regard to proof of aggravating factors, defendant relies on Apprendi, supra, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435, and Ring v. Arizona (2002) 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556. These decisions are inapposite for reasons previously explained: `[U]nder the California death penalty scheme, once the defendant has been convicted of first degree murder and one or more special circumstances has been found true beyond a reasonable doubt, death is no more than the prescribed statutory maximum for the offense; the only alternative is life imprisonment without possibility of parole. (§ 190.2, subd. (a).) Hence, facts which bear upon, but do not necessarily determine, which of these two alternative penalties is appropriate do not come within the holding of Apprendi. ' [( People v. Anderson, supra, 25 Cal.4th at pp. 589-590, fn. 14, 106 Cal.Rptr.2d 575, 22 P.3d 347.)] The high court's recent decision in Ring v. Arizona (2002) 536 U.S. 584 [122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556] does not change this analysis. Under the Arizona capital sentencing scheme invalidated in Ring, a defendant convicted of first degree murder could be sentenced to death if, and only if, the trial court first found at least one of the enumerated aggravating factors true. ( Id. at p. 603 [122 S.Ct. 2428].) Under California's scheme, in contrast, each juror must believe the circumstances in aggravation substantially outweigh those in mitigation, but the jury as a whole need not find any one aggravating factor to exist. The final step in California capital sentencing is a free weighing of all the factors relating to the defendant's culpability, comparable to a sentencing court's traditionally discretionary decision to, for example, impose one prison sentence rather than another. Nothing in Apprendi or Ring suggests the sentencer in such a system constitutionally must find any aggravating factor true beyond a reasonable doubt. ( People v. Snow, supra, 30 Cal.4th at p. 126, fn. 32, 132 Cal.Rptr.2d 271, 65 P.3d 749.)