Opinion ID: 2586480
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: First Degree Murder Liability and Special Circumstance Findings

Text: Defendant argues that California's death penalty scheme, as applied to his case, violates the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment, the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment, and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it permitted the jury to use the circumstances that he committed the murder in the perpetration of mayhem and by torture to support (1) his first degree murder conviction under a felony-murder theory, (2) the mayhem and torture felony-murder special-circumstance findings, and (3) the imposition of a death sentence. As he acknowledges, we have repeatedly rejected this same argument. (See, e.g., People v. Seaton (2001) 26 Cal.4th 598, 690-691 [110 Cal.Rptr.2d 441, 28 P.3d 175]; People v. Marshall (1990) 50 Cal.3d 907, 945-946 [269 Cal.Rptr. 269, 790 P.2d 676]; see also Lowenfield v. Phelps (1988) 484 U.S. 231, 246 [98 L.Ed.2d 568, 108 S.Ct. 546] [the fact that the aggravating circumstance duplicated one of the elements of the crime does not make [the death] sentence constitutionally infirm].) Defendant offers no persuasive reason to revisit our prior decisions, and we decline to do so.