Opinion ID: 2594735
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Defense Counsel's Failure to Request Certain Jury Instructions

Text: Defendant faults his trial counsel for not requesting jury instructions on (a) the elements of offenses, lesser included offenses, and specific intent as to six violent unadjudicated criminal acts introduced by the prosecution as aggravating evidence; (b) the presumption of innocence and the requirement of unanimity; and (c) lingering doubt.
Section 190.3, factor (b), provides that in determining the appropriate sentence, the jury is to take into account criminal activity by the defendant that involved the use or attempted use of force or violence or the express or implied threat to use force or violence. Under this statute, the prosecution here introduced evidence of assaults by defendant, his brandishing of a firearm, his commission of robbery and attempted murder, and his attempt to dissuade a witness from testifying. The prosecution proposed that the trial court give the jury the standard instruction on proof of other criminal activity. (CALJIC No. 8.84.1.2.) That instruction stated that the jury could consider a prior criminal act as an aggravating circumstance only if the jury was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant had committed the act. During the instruction conference between the court and counsel, defense counsel suggested that the court modify the instruction to allow for the possibility that the jury might be convinced that defendant committed some but not all of the criminal acts asserted by the prosecution. During the discussion, defense counsel stated to the court that it should possibly have an instruction on each [act] individually and a definition of those particular crimes. The prosecutor responded that if the defense wanted an instruction on the elements of all the crimes, that's fine. To that, defense counsel subsequently said, I am not asking for any specific instructions. We reject defendant's claim that trial counsel should have asked for jury instructions on the elements of the various offenses that the prosecution offered as prior criminal activity, on any lesser included offenses, and on specific intent. A trial court need not instruct on the elements of the offenses of prior criminal activity introduced at the penalty phase unless the defense so requests. This rule recognizes that, for tactical reasons, defendants in the vast majority of cases do not want to risk highlighting prior violent crimes or alienating the jury with hypertechnical defenses to bad acts which otherwise seem clearly aggravating. ( People v. Tuilaepa, supra, 4 Cal.4th at p. 592, 15 Cal.Rptr.2d 382, 842 P.2d 1142.) Here, defense counsel may well have decided as a matter of trial strategy not to highlight, for example, defendant's putting a gun against the chest of victim Francisco Lopez and pulling the trigger without provocation. We find no ineffective representation.
Defendant faults his counsel for not requesting jury instructions on the presumption of innocence and requiring unanimity among the jury as to the truth of unadjudicated crimes. Because the trial court instructed the jury that the unadjudicated offenses had to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, a presumption of innocence instruction was unnecessary. ( People v. Rodrigues (1994) 8 Cal.4th 1060, 1190-1191, 36 Cal.Rptr.2d 235, 885 P.2d 1.) The law does not require jury unanimity as to prior criminal acts introduced at the penalty phase of a capital trial as evidence of an aggravating factor. ( People v. Jennings (1988) 46 Cal.3d 963, 988, 251 Cal.Rptr. 278, 760 P.2d 475.)
Defendant criticizes trial counsel for not asking the trial court to instruct the jury that it could consider any lingering doubt it may have had about his guilt. Counsel's failure to request such an instruction does not demonstrate deficient performance. Given the horrific facts surrounding the murder of Mary Frances Litovich and the jury's relatively quick determination of defendant's guilt, trial counsel may have had tactical reasons for not again focusing the jury's attention on the guilt phase evidence.