Opinion ID: 2507854
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Instructions Concerning the Weighing of Aggravating and Mitigating Factors

Text: In People v. Brown (1985) 40 Cal.3d 512, 230 Cal.Rptr. 834, 726 P.2d 516, we observed that it would be error to require jurors to render a death verdict on the basis of some arithmetical formula or to impose death on any basis other than their own judgment that such a verdict was appropriate under all the facts and circumstances of the individual case. ( Id. at p. 540, 230 Cal.Rptr. 834, 726 P.2d 516.) The instructions here were consistent with Brown in both respects. (See id. at p. 545, fn. 19, 230 Cal.Rptr. 834, 726 P.2d 516.) The jury was told that the weighing of aggravating and mitigating circumstances does not mean a mere mechanical counting of factors on each side of an imaginary scale, or the arbitrary assignment of weights to any of them. The jury was also told that [i]f, in your reasonable judgment you conclude that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances and you personally believe death is the appropriate sentence under all the circumstances, then you shall impose death. [In] the event that you cannot so find, you shall impose life without the possibility of parole. There was thus no risk that a juror would have voted for death without also personally determining that death was an appropriate penalty. ( People v. Cox (2003) 30 Cal.4th 916, 964-965, 135 Cal.Rptr.2d 272, 70 P.3d 277; People v. Carpenter (1997) 15 Cal.4th 312, 419, 63 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 935 P.2d 708.) Defendant also argues that the trial court committed reversible error in failing to instruct the jury that it could impose the penalty of death only if it found the aggravating circumstances so substantial in comparison with the mitigating circumstances that a death verdict is warranted. Although the foregoing derives from CALJIC No. 8.88, its omission was not error. ( People v. Alcala (1992) 4 Cal.4th 742, 808, 15 Cal.Rptr.2d 432, 842 P.2d 1192.) The other instructions told the jurors that they were free to assign whatever moral or sympathetic value you deem appropriate to each and all of the various factors you are permitted to consider; that they must determine which penalty is justified and appropriate by considering the totality of the aggravating circumstances with the totality of the mitigating circumstances and by weighing the totality of the circumstances; and that they could impose death only if they found the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances and they personally believed death was the appropriate sentence under all the circumstances.