Opinion ID: 1351466
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Failure to Instruct Sua Sponte on Sympathy as a Mitigating Factor

Text: (43) Defendant contends the court has a sua sponte duty to instruct the jury explicitly that it may consider sympathy for the defendant as a mitigating factor. The court did instruct the jury on the statutory aggravating and mitigating factors, including the modified section 190.3, factor (k) instruction: under modified factor (k), the jury could consider any other circumstance which extenuates the gravity of the crime even though it is not a legal excuse for the crime, and any other aspect of the defendant's character or record that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death. Such an instruction complies with the federal constitutional requirement that in the penalty phase of a capital case the jury not be precluded from considering any evidence in mitigation. (See People v. Easley (1983) 34 Cal.3d 858, 878, fn. 10 [196 Cal. Rptr. 309, 671 P.2d 813]; Eddings v. Oklahoma (1982) 455 U.S. 104, 110 [71 L.Ed.2d 1, 8, 102 S.Ct. 869].) There is no additional constitutional or statutory duty to explicitly instruct the jury sua sponte that sympathy for the defendant is a permissible basis for sentencing him to less than death.