Opinion ID: 1226896
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Claim of Error Concerning Failure to Instruct on Overlapping Special Circumstances

Text: (51) Defendant claims, in substance, that the trial court erred by failing to instruct the jury that the felony-murder-burglary and felony-murder-robbery special circumstances found as to each of the two murders arose from what he alleges was a single act or an indivisible course of conduct with one principal criminal objective ( People v. Harris (1984) 36 Cal.3d 36, 66 [201 Cal. Rptr 782, 679 P.2d 433] (plur. opn.)) and, as a result, could be considered only as a single circumstance for the purposes of determining penalty. His point is predicated on an assertion that unitary consideration of overlapping special circumstances is required by the prohibition against multiple punishment of Penal Code section 654 and also by the cruel and unusual punishments clause of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The claim is without merit. Its premise is unsound. To be sure, the Harris plurality supported defendant's assertion. (36 Cal.3d at pp. 62-67.) But in People v. Melton (1988) 44 Cal.3d 713, 765-768 [244 Cal. Rptr. 867, 750 P.2d 741], a majority of this court subsequently held to the contrary. Accordingly, the point fails. (Compare ibid. [rejecting a similar claim].)