Opinion ID: 2625875
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 20

Heading: Inadequate Response to Jury Question About Parole

Text: During its penalty deliberations, the jury sent out a note asking, If we give life imprisonment without possibility of parole, can we be assured he will never be[ ] released from prison. Defense counsel urged the court to tell the jury life imprisonment without possibility of parole means exactly what it said. The court instead told the jury to reread the instructions and that we will have you apply common meaning to the two possible verdicts of death or life imprisonment without possibility of parole. Defendant contends this response violated his rights under the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. We disagree. The court's response did not differ significantly from that which defense counsel sought. The common meaning of life imprisonment without possibility of parole is that the defendant will be imprisoned for the rest of his life, without any possibility of release on parole. This is the same meaning conveyed by counsel's suggested response that the term means exactly what it said. The court's response also satisfied our holding in People v. Kipp (1998) 18 Cal.4th 349, 75 Cal.Rptr.2d 716, 956 P.2d 1169, that when the jury expresses a concern regarding the effect of a life without parole sentence, the court should instruct the jury to assume that whatever penalty it selects will be carried out or give a comparable instruction. ( Id. at pp. 378-379, 75 Cal.Rptr.2d 716, 956 P.2d 1169.) Three United States Supreme Court decisions stemming from death sentences imposed under South Carolina law are readily distinguishable, in that the juries in those cases were told that the alternative to a death sentence was one of life imprisonment without instruction that a capital defendant given such a sentence would not be eligible for parole. ( Kelly v. South Carolina (2002) 534 U.S. 246, 250, 122 S.Ct. 726, 151 L.Ed.2d 670; Shafer v. South Carolina (2001) 532 U.S. 36, 44-45, 121 S.Ct. 1263, 149 L.Ed.2d 178; Simmons v. South Carolina (1994) 512 U.S. 154, 158-160, 114 S.Ct. 2187, 129 L.Ed.2d 133.) Here, the jury was told that the alternative to death was life imprisonment without possibility of parole, and that that phrase should be understood in its ordinary sense. Those instructions were sufficient to inform the jury that defendant would not be eligible for parole.