Opinion ID: 2359622
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Trial Court's Failure to Give a Sua Sponte Instruction Regarding Defendant's Prior Penalty Phase Trials

Text: As part of his trial strategy, defendant presented a Death Row redemption defense in which he stressed, for example, his religious conversion and his 24-year discipline-free record in prison. (See People v. Anderson (1990) 52 Cal.3d 453, 468 [276 Cal.Rptr. 356, 801 P.2d 1107].) Necessarily, the jury learned about defendant's prior death verdicts. Defense counsel referred to them in closing argument, arguing, for instance, that the prior death verdicts had brought no emotional relief to the families of the victims. Defendant now faults the trial court for its failure to have instructed the jury sua sponte not to consider the fact of those prior verdicts in determining the appropriate penalty. According to defendant, as a result of the trial court's instructional error (1) one or more jurors may have considered the fact that two previous juries returned a death verdict in this case as a reason to impose death; (2) an instruction was necessary to prevent the jury from dismissing or devaluing [defendant's] mitigating evidence because it had been deemed insufficient by two previous juries; and (3) the jury's sense of responsibility for its decision was ... undermined by the knowledge that the two prior death judgments were both set aside by a higher court. The argument is without merit. (5) Absent a request, the trial court was not required to give instructions limiting the purpose for which the jury could consider the evidence. Evidence Code section 355 states: When evidence is admissible ... for one purpose and is inadmissible ... for another purpose, the court upon request shall restrict the evidence to its proper scope and instruct the jury accordingly. (Italics added.) Absent a request, a trial court generally has no duty to instruct as to the limited purpose for which evidence has been admitted. ( People v. Cowan (2010) 50 Cal.4th 401, 479 [113 Cal.Rptr.3d 850, 236 P.3d 1074].) There is a possible narrow exception in the `occasional extraordinary case' in which the evidence `is a dominant part of the evidence against the accused, and is both highly prejudicial and minimally relevant to any legitimate purpose.' ( People v. Hernandez (2004) 33 Cal.4th 1040, 1051-1052 [16 Cal.Rptr.3d 880, 94 P.3d 1080], quoting People v. Collie (1981) 30 Cal.3d 43, 63-64 [177 Cal.Rptr. 458, 634 P.2d 534].) That exception does not apply here because the evidence in question was admitted not against defendant but in his behalf. Accordingly, the trial court had no sua sponte duty to give a limiting instruction regarding evidence of the prior death verdicts. The argument also fails on its merits. In People v. Ramos (1997) 15 Cal.4th 1133 [64 Cal.Rptr.2d 892, 938 P.2d 950], a similar claim was made and rejected by this court. In Ramos, the trial court declined to instruct the jury not to consider the prior death verdict. We found no error. In Romano v. Oklahoma (1994) 512 U.S. 1 [114 S.Ct. 2004, 129 L.Ed.2d 1], the jury was not instructed in determining penalty to disregard the fact a capital defendant had already been sentenced to death in another case. Although the evidence may have been irrelevant, the Supreme Court found no Eighth Amendment or due process violation because `the jury was not affirmatively misled regarding its role in the sentencing process.' [Citations.] `[I]f the jurors followed the trial court's instructions, which we presume they did [citation], this evidence should have littleif anyeffect on their deliberations. Those instructions clearly and properly described the jurors' paramount role in determining petitioner's sentence, and they also explicitly limited the jurors' consideration of aggravating factors to the four which the State sought to prove.' [Citation.] [¶] Similarly here, the trial court repeatedly directed the jury it must determine the appropriate penalty in light of the statutory factors in aggravation and mitigation. The court also expressly instructed that the determination depended upon each juror's individual weighing of those circumstances. Moreover, nothing in the evidence or argument of counsel was `inaccurate [or] misleading in a manner that diminished the jury's sense of responsibility.' [Citation.] Accordingly, the omission of a specific instruction to disregard the prior death sentence was not error. [Citation.] ( People v. Ramos, supra, 15 Cal.4th at p. 1181.) The reasoning in Ramos is applicable here. The jury was repeatedly instructed to base its determination on the evidence presented in this case, and, as in Ramos, we presume the jury followed those instructions. Moreover, as was also true in Ramos, there was nothing in the argument of either counsel that suggested responsibility for the determination of the penalty rested anywhere other than with this jury. [5] Finally, defendant's claim of prejudice is entirely speculative, for he points to nothing in the record that supports his claim that any juror either voted to impose the death penalty because the previous juries had done so or devalued defendant's evidence because it had failed to persuade the previous juries. Defendant's reliance on Caldwell v. Mississippi (1985) 472 U.S. 320 [86 L.Ed.2d 231, 105 S.Ct. 2633] is also unavailing. In Caldwell, a capital case, the prosecutor responded to a defense argument emphasizing the gravity of the jury's role in deciding the penalty by telling the jurors `your decision is not the final decision,' and `the decision you render is automatically reviewable by the Supreme Court.' ( Id. at pp. 325-326.) In reversing, a plurality of the Supreme Court held it is constitutionally impermissible to rest a death sentence on a determination made by a sentencer who has been led to believe that the responsibility for determining the appropriateness of the defendant's death rests elsewhere. ( Id. at pp. 328-329.) (6) Subsequently, however, the Supreme Court has recognized that Caldwell 's holding may be narrower: As JUSTICE O'CONNOR supplied the fifth vote in Caldwell, and concurred on grounds narrower than those put forth by the plurality, her position is controlling. [Citations.] Accordingly, we have since read Caldwell as `relevant only to certain types of comment those that mislead the jury as to its role in the sentencing process in a way that allows the jury to feel less responsible than it should for the sentencing decision.' [Citation.] Thus, `[t]o establish a Caldwell violation, a defendant necessarily must show that the remarks to the jury improperly described the role assigned to the jury by local law.' ( Romano v. Oklahoma, supra, 512 U.S. at p. 9; see id. at p. 14 (conc. opn. of O'Connor, J.) [The inaccuracy of the prosecutor's argument in Caldwell was essential to my conclusion that the argument was unconstitutional. [Citation.] An accurate description of the jury's roleeven one that lessened the jury's sense of responsibilitywould have been constitutional.]; People v. Osband (1996) 13 Cal.4th 622, 694 [55 Cal.Rptr.2d 26, 919 P.2d 640] [ Caldwell error occurs when the jury has been `affirmatively misled ... regarding its role in the sentencing process so as to diminish its sense of responsibility.'].) In this case, the prosecutor did not affirmatively mislead the jury regarding its role in the sentencing process so as to diminish its sense of responsibility for its decision. Therefore, there was no Caldwell error in this case; nor, under Ramos, did the trial court err by not giving a sua sponte instruction limiting consideration of evidence of defendant's prior death verdicts. [6]