Opinion ID: 1233910
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: brown claim

Text: (19) This case was tried before our decision in People v. Brown (1985) 40 Cal.3d 512 [220 Cal. Rptr. 637, 709 P.2d 440] (revd. on other grounds (1987) 479 U.S. 538 [93 L.Ed.2d 934, 107 S.Ct. 837]), and the trial court instructed the jury, in conformity with the then-applicable provisions of CALJIC No. 8.84, that after considering the applicable aggravating and mitigating circumstances [i]f you conclude that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances, you shall impose a sentence of death. However, if you determine that the mitigating circumstances outweigh the aggravating circumstances, you shall impose a sentence of confinement in the state prison for life without possibility of parole. In Brown, supra, 40 Cal.3d 512, we recognized that this instruction  which tracked the language of section 190.3  was potentially confusing and could mislead the jury with respect to its determination of penalty in two separate respects. As we explained recently in People v. Lang, supra, 49 Cal.3d 991, 1033-1034: One danger is that the jury might believe it could perform the weighing process in a mechanical fashion by comparing the number of factors in aggravation with the number in mitigation, or by the arbitrary assignment of weights to the factors. [Citation.] The other danger is that the jury might fail to understand that our statutory scheme does not require any juror to vote for the death penalty unless, as a result of the weighing process, the juror personally determines that death is the appropriate penalty under all the circumstances. Because of the potentially misleading nature of the instruction, we held in Brown that in cases tried after that decision the instruction should be modified to clarify the nature of the jury's sentencing function. (See Brown, supra, 40 Cal.3d at pp. 544-545, fns. 17, 19.) With respect to cases, like this one, which were tried before Brown, we indicated that we would examine the record to determine whether, in context, the jury may have been misled to defendant's prejudice about the scope of its sentencing discretion. (See id. at p. 544, fn. 17.) In this case, it is clear from the record that the first potential danger posed by the instruction  that the jury would treat the process as a mechanical one  was not present. The trial court anticipated this aspect of Brown, supra, 40 Cal.3d 512, by specifically instructing the jury not to simply count the aggravating and mitigating circumstances but to weigh them. [23] With respect to the second potential problem  the danger that the jurors would not understand that they should not return a death sentence unless they were persuaded that death rather than life without parole was the appropriate punishment under all the circumstances  the court gave a number of additional instructions that minimized the risk that the jurors would have misinterpreted the shall language of former CALJIC No. 8.84 as improperly restricting their sentencing discretion. First, the court instructed the jury that [m]itigating factors are unlimited and that [a]nything mitigating should be considered and may be taken into account in deciding to impose a sentence of life without possibility of parole. Second, the court informed the jurors that they could assign whatever weight they wished to each factor, and that any mitigating circumstance, standing alone, may be sufficient to support a decision that life without possibility of parole is an appropriate punishment, provided that the mitigating circumstance or circumstances outweigh[] any aggravating circumstance or circumstances. Finally, the court told the jury that pity, sympathy or mercy for the defendant may be sufficient to justify a sentence of life without possibility of parole. Defendant contends that because the court qualified its instruction that any mitigating circumstance may be sufficient to support a decision that life without possibility of parole is an appropriate punishment, by the clause provided that the mitigating circumstance or circumstances outweigh[] any aggravating circumstance or circumstances, the jury was not left with the proper message that it did not have to return a death sentence unless it felt that death was the appropriate sentence under all the circumstances. From our review of the entire record, however, we conclude that the jury was not misled as to the nature of its sentencing task. First, although the court's instructions may not have fully anticipated the Brown decision ( supra, 40 Cal.3d 512), the instructions did make it clear to the jurors that they retained the authority to impose a sentence of life without possibility of parole if they concluded on the basis of pity, sympathy or mercy for the defendant that death was not the appropriate punishment. In light of this instruction, it is unlikely that a juror would have interpreted the instructions as a whole to require him or her to return a death verdict even if he or she did not personally believe that the death penalty was warranted under all the circumstances. Furthermore, the prosecutor in his closing argument never suggested to the jurors that they were required to impose the death penalty without regard to their personal views as to the appropriateness of that penalty under the circumstances of this case. (Cf. People v. Milner (1988) 45 Cal.3d 227, 254-256 [246 Cal. Rptr. 713, 753 P.2d 669].) On the contrary, the prosecutor repeatedly told the jury that there is one question for you to decide in this case and that is based upon what you have heard in this court, what penalty does this defendant deserve for what he did. Although at one point in his argument, before beginning his analysis of the aggravating and mitigating factors, the prosecutor did tell the jury that [i]f the aggravation in this case outweighs the mitigation, as it would appear to by a significant margin, then your verdict should be a vote for death, he did not emphasize that formulation, but rather told the jury that if you feel enough sympathy or pity or mercy, just based on those factors alone, just for the defendant, no misunderstanding about that ... then you can spare his life, based on that. Towards the conclusion of his argument, the prosecutor asked the jurors to ask themselves: Is this a person who, based on what I know about him, is a person who we should subject to the ultimate penalty we have at our disposal? And then, he ended his argument by observing that none of us likes to talk about it, but sometimes we find someone who deserves the worst penalty, the worst punishment we as a society can impose. [¶] And this is exactly that defendant, and this is exactly that case. And that's the penalty we're asking you to impose on him. Viewing the record as a whole, we conclude that there is no reasonable basis for doubting that the jurors properly understood that their task at the penalty phase was to determine whether, under all the circumstances, death or life without possibility of parole was the appropriate penalty for defendant.