Opinion ID: 1179776
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Argument Against Sympathy or Mercy.

Text: (36) In his penalty phase arguments, the prosecutor urged at some length that defendant was not deserving of sympathy or mercy, and he challenged the jury to consider whether the defendant deserves to live. Defendant contends these arguments suggested that sympathy and mercy were irrelevant to the penalty determination, contrary to the rule that defendant is entitled to consideration of any sympathetic evidence in mitigation. (See, e.g., Eddings v. Oklahoma (1982) 455 U.S. 104, 114-117 [71 L.Ed.2d 1, 11-12, 102 S.Ct. 869]; People v. Haskett, supra, 30 Cal.3d 841, 863.) Defendant's counsel failed to object and request an admonition, though an admonition would have cured any harm. Hence, the contention is waived on appeal. (E.g., People v. Hamilton, supra, 48 Cal.3d 1142, 1184, fn. 27; People v. Green, supra, 27 Cal.3d 1, 33-34.) [35] In any event, we see no impropriety. The prosecutor merely argued that the mitigation doesn't really amount to much in its totality, that sympathy for defendant would rob the murder victim of the sympathy he deserved, and that the jurors had promised to follow the law and decide the case on the evidence, not on the distraction of the sympathy that might pull at your heart strings. Yet the prosecutor never suggested that the jury was prohibited from considering defendant's mitigating evidence in a sympathetic light, and the jury was expressly instructed that it could do so. The prosecutor himself told the jury at one point that in the guilt phase, they said you're instructed not to consider sympathy, but here you should. If sympathy is based on the evidence and you find that evidence exists, then, you must consider it ..., evaluate it for what it's worth, and then, compare it to the aggravation. (Italics added.) The prosecutor's argument was entirely proper. (E.g., People v. Clark (1992) 3 Cal.4th 41, 163-164 [10 Cal. Rptr.2d 554, 833 P.2d 561]; People v. Edwards, supra, 54 Cal.3d 787, 839-840.) Nor do we accept defendant's claim that by suggesting defendant did not deserve to live, the prosecutor implied there was a presumption that anyone guilty of a special circumstance murder should be sentenced to death. The prosecutor merely argued that the balance of aggravating and mitigating evidence in this case favored death over the alternative of life imprisonment without possibility of parole.