Opinion ID: 1202760
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Consideration of Invalid Felony Murder-burglary Special Circumstances

Text: (9) Defendant contends that the felony murder-burglary special-circumstance finding was invalid (see ante, fn. 7) and, as such, was improperly presented to the jurors as evidence in aggravation under the instruction directing them to consider the existence of any special circumstance found to be true. He then contends that the error requires reversal. We cannot agree. Assuming for argument's sake that the finding was invalid, we are nevertheless of the opinion that even if the jurors had not been instructed to consider the existence of this finding, they still would have returned a verdict of death: whereas the evidence in aggravation  even without the finding  was overwhelming, the evidence in mitigation was minimal.