Opinion ID: 2545785
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Trial Court's Failure to Instruct on Defendant's Lack of a Violent Record

Text: The trial court instructed the jurors that in determining whether to impose the death penalty, they should consider, take into account and be guided by the following factors, if applicable: [¶] ... [¶] (b) The presence or absence of criminal activity by the defendant, other than the crimes for which the defendant has been tried in the present proceedings, which involved the express or implied threat to use force or violence. Defendant argues this instruction was inaccurate because it did not expressly tell the jurors that they should regard section 190.3, factor (b) as mitigating if they found that aside from the murders in this case defendant had not engaged in violent criminal conduct. According to defendant, the jury was likely to infer from the court's instruction that lack of a history of violence was a neutral rather than a mitigating factor. The Attorney General contends that any error was invited by defendant because he helped the trial court in drafting the instruction in question. We find no invited error. Defense counsel did not participate in drafting the instruction, he merely objected to those portions of the instruction that would allow the jury to conclude, based on the evidence that a shank had been found in defendant's prison cell, that defendant had engaged in conduct involving the threat to employ violence. But the trial court's instruction was proper. We have repeatedly held that `trial courts are not required to identify particular sentencing factors as aggravating or mitigating and that the 1978 death penalty law is constitutional despite the absence of such a requirement.' ( People v. Davenport (1995) 11 Cal.4th 1171, 1229, 47 Cal.Rptr.2d 800, 906 P.2d 1068; see also People v. Earp (1999) 20 Cal.4th 826, 899, 85 Cal.Rptr.2d 857, 978 P.2d 15; People v. Frye (1998) 18 Cal.4th 894, 1026-1027, 77 Cal.Rptr.2d 25, 959 P.2d 183; People v. Howard (1992) 1 Cal.4th 1132, 1196, 5 Cal.Rptr.2d 268, 824 P.2d 1315.) Defendant asserts these cases are distinguishable because in each the defendant contended that all of the factors should be labeled as aggravating or mitigating, while here he claims only that one particular factor should have been so labeled. We find no distinction: if the trial court need not label all the enumerated factors as aggravating or mitigating, it necessarily follows that it need not identify any particular factor as aggravating or mitigating.