Opinion ID: 2509294
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 24

Heading: Defense Pinpoint Instructions

Text: Defendant contends the trial court erred when it rejected two defense pinpoint instructions, denominated Defense Special Instruction No. 3 (Instruction No. 3) and Defense Special Instruction No. 4 (Instruction No. 4). Instruction No. 3 stated: There is evidence from which you may infer that the decedent was not alive at the time of the sodomy. This evidence includes the testimony of Dr. Heuser concerning the failure of the anal sphincter to constrict. [ķ] If you find from the evidence that it was reasonably possible that decedent was dead at the time of the sodomy, you must find the special circumstance to be not true, even though there may be evidence that the deceased was alive. [ķ] In order to find the special circumstance of sodomy to be true, you must find that the only reasonable interpretation of the evidence was that the deceased was alive, and this must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The first paragraph of Instruction No. 4 stated: In considering whether the prosecution has failed to meet its burden of proving sodomy beyond a reasonable doubt, you may consider the testimony of Mr. Moore that he could not conclude that any semen was present in the anal region. There was a second paragraph, not reproduced in the record but which the trial court described as being about the testimony of Dr. Heuser, that the penetration could have been by another object. A trial court must instruct on the law applicable to the facts of the case. [Citation.] In addition, a defendant has a right to an instruction that pinpoints the theory of the defense. [Citation.] The court must, however, refuse an argumentative instruction, that is, an instruction `of such a character as to invite the jury to draw inferences favorable to one of the parties from specified items of evidence.' ( People v. Mincey (1992) 2 Cal.4th 408, 437, 6 Cal.Rptr.2d 822, 827 P.2d 388.) The first paragraph of Instruction No. 3 is no more than an assertion that the victim was dead at the time of the act of sodomy, supported by a fragment of the coroner's testimony. Similarly, the first paragraph of Instruction No. 4 argues, in essence, that because the serologist testified semen was absent from the victim's anal region, the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial court properly rejected these portions of the special instructions as argumentative. [36] A trial court is not required to give pinpoint instructions that merely duplicate other instructions. ( People v. Bolden, supra, 29 Cal.4th at p. 558, 127 Cal. Rptr.2d 802, 58 P.3d 931.) The second paragraph of Instruction No. 3 directed the jury to find the sodomy special circumstance not true if it found it was reasonably possible the decedent was dead at the time the act of sodomy was committed, notwithstanding evidence she was alive. The third paragraph of Instruction No. 3, in essence, required the jury to find the victim was alive beyond a reasonable doubt before it found the sodomy special circumstance true. Both proposed instructions were duplicative of the other instructions given, including, among others, the reasonable doubt instruction (CALJIC No. 2.90) and defendant's Special Instruction No. 1 (Instruction No. 1). This instruction informed the jury that, to find the sodomy special circumstance true, it must find the victim was alive when sodomy was committed. Also apparently duplicative was the second paragraph of Instruction No. 4, the intention of which appears to have been to instruct the jury that penetration with a foreign object did not constitute sodomy, a subject already covered in defendant's Instruction No. 1, which stated, in part, If you find that penetration of the anus in this case was with a foreign object, you may not find the sodomy special circumstance to be true, and in the reasonable doubt instruction. We find, therefore, that the trial court correctly rejected defendant's proposed instructions.