Opinion ID: 4273082
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Issues Relating to Lingering Doubt

Text: Reed argues that the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the penalty phase retrial jury on lingering doubt. (See People v. Gay (2008) 42 Cal.4th 1195, 1218 (Gay) [“’The lingering doubts of jurors in the guilt phase may well cast their shadows into the penalty phase and in some measure affect the nature of the punishment.’ ”], quoting People v. Terry (1964) 61 Cal.2d 137, 146.) He also claims that other aspects of the trial court’s communications with the jury intruded on defense counsel’s ability to argue lingering doubt, and essentially directed a verdict of death. We find no error.
Before the penalty phase retrial, and again after the close of the evidence, the trial court informed jurors that Reed’s guilt for Vasquez’s and Moreland’s murders was to be “conclusively presumed” and had been “conclusively proven.” After the end of the retrial, defense counsel requested two jury instructions relating to lingering doubt. The prosecutor objected, and the trial court declined to give the instructions. The instructions given addressed the section 190.3 factors to determine a murder penalty, including factor (k), which directs the jury to consider “[a]ny other circumstance which extenuates the gravity of the crime even though it is not a legal excuse for the crime.” The jury instructions also stated that the 28 defendant had previously been convicted of first degree murder with a special circumstance found true. During closing argument, defense counsel argued at length that problems with Mendez and Fradiue’s identifications of Reed should lead the jury to reject the death penalty. After the jury deliberated for several hours, it asked the court the following question: If the jury agrees that one of the cases presented warrants the death penalty, however, one of the cases contains some doubt, according to the instructions, is it sufficient for awarding death? Defense counsel argued that the trial court should respond “no” and inform the jury that it could consider lingering doubt as a circumstance in mitigation. The prosecutor argued that “legally the answer to the question is yes,” but expressed concern that telling the jury “yes” would be “telling them how they should vote.” The parties therefore settled on the following answer: “All things considered, including whatever doubt you may have on one of the murders, all things considered, you can chose one or the other.” The trial court then instructed the jury as follows: That all things considered in this case, in the context of your question, the jury still may choose which of the two penalties is appropriate in this case. The answer is yes. After further deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of death.
We can readily address Reed’s contention that the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury before it began deliberating on lingering guilt. We have “put to rest” the “Cox dictum that a lingering doubt instruction may be required as a matter of statutory law.” (Hartsch, supra, 49 Cal.4th at pp. 512513.) Rather, “the standard instructions on capital sentencing factors, together with counsel’s closing argument, are sufficient to convey the lingering doubt 29 concept to the jury.” (Id. at p. 513; see also People v. Jackson (2016) 1 Cal.5th 269, 369-370 [“Neither state nor federal law requires a trial court to instruct a penalty jury to consider lingering doubt as a factor in mitigation.”].) Reed does not dispute that the trial court instructed using the standard sentencing factors and that his attorney argued lingering doubt extensively during closing. We therefore find no error. Reed also challenges the trial court’s response to the jury’s query. As an initial matter, the Attorney General argues that Reed has waived this claim “because defense counsel both participated in the formulation of a response and affirmatively approved of the response ultimately given.” But the response given to the jury differed in two material respects from that to which the parties agreed: The trial court omitted the proposed instruction’s reference to lingering doubt and added “[t]he answer is yes” to the end of the response. Because the instruction given materially differs from that to which Reed’s attorney acceded, Reed did not waive the issue. On the merits, we find no error. We reject the argument that the question’s reference to “doubt” entitled Reed to his proposed lingering doubt instruction. In People v. Brooks, the jury asked whether “one item in mitigation was enough for a sentence of life without the possibility of parole,” a concept that we have repeatedly held that a trial court does not need to specifically explain to the jury. (People v. Brooks (2017) 2 Cal.5th 674, 768.) We did not embrace the defendant’s contention that the jury’s question required the trial court to give his proposed instruction on the issue. (Id. at pp. 768-769.) The circumstances here are similar. The sheer fact that the jury appeared to be confused about lingering doubt did not automatically entitle the defendant to his proposed instruction. Instead, we review the trial court’s response for abuse of discretion to determine whether it adequately satisfied the jury’s request for information. (Id. at p. 769.) 30 Here, there was no abuse of discretion. The instruction was an accurate statement of relevant law. Lingering doubt is but one factor a jury may consider when determining the appropriate penalty. And no single section 190.3 factor “determines which penalty — death or life without the possibility of parole — is appropriate.” (Virgil, supra, 51 Cal.4th at p. 1279, quoting People v. Prieto (2003) 30 Cal.4th 226, 263.) Accordingly, a jury may impose a death sentence notwithstanding its belief that mitigating circumstances, including lingering doubt, exist. (See CALJIC No. 8.88 [“To return a judgment of death, each of you must be persuaded that the aggravating circumstances are so substantial in comparison with the mitigating circumstances that it warrants death instead of life without parole.”].) The trial court’s statement that, even if the jury has some doubt, it “still may choose which of the two penalties is appropriate” was therefore an accurate statement of the significance of the existence of lingering doubt in jury’s penalty determination. Reed seizes on the prosecutor’s comment that “telling [the jury] yes they can” — something the trial court added to the end of the supplementary instruction — “will be telling them how they should vote.” He argues that even the prosecutor recognized that the court’s statement essentially directed a death verdict. Read as a whole, however, the supplemental instruction did not direct a verdict but instead advised the jury that it could impose a death sentence based on “all things considered in this case” even if it found lingering doubt. We therefore find no error. Reed also takes issue with the trial court’s statements that his guilt was to be “conclusively presumed” and had been “conclusively proven.” But we have previously held that similar statements do not impede a defendant’s ability to argue lingering doubt. (See People v. Streeter (2012) 54 Cal.4th 205, 265 [“The trial court properly instructed the jury that the penalty phase jury must conclusively accept the previous guilt phase jury’s findings on 31 defendant’s guilt and on the truth of the special circumstance allegations.”]; see also People v. DeSantis (1992) 2 Cal.4th 1198, 1236, 1238 [holding that trial court’s statement that defendant’s guilt “has already been decided” “did not remove the question of lingering doubt from the jury, but only told it the truth: that in the penalty phase defendant’s guilt was to be conclusively presumed as a matter of law”].) Reed relies on Gay, supra, 42 Cal.4th 1195, but that case is distinguishable. In Gay, the error was evidentiary: the trial court erroneously precluded defense counsel from introducing evidence inconsistent with the prior jury’s guilty verdict. (42 Cal.4th at p. 1218.) Here, by contrast, the defense introduced considerable testimony during the penalty phase retrial asserting that Reed was not the shooter. Gay did note that the trial court’s instructions to the jury compounded its evidentiary error. (42 Cal.4th at p. 1224.) But those instructions told the jury to “disregard” any statements or evidence that contradicted the prior jury’s verdict. (Id. at p. 1225.) In contrast, the instructions here did nothing of the sort. Because of this, the instructions were not erroneous. Finally, Reed argues that the trial court erred by failing to inform the penalty phase retrial jury of the first jury’s deadlock and that Galindo did not testify during the first trial. Defense counsel did not request either of these instructions. Any claim based on the trial court’s failure to instruct on these points is therefore forfeited. (Cf. Jennings, supra, 50 Cal.4th at p. 675 [failure to request pinpoint instruction forfeits claim on appeal].) On the merits, we have made clear that “the fact of a first jury’s deadlock, or its numerical vote, is irrelevant to the issues before the jury on a penalty retrial.” (People v. Hawkins (1995) 10 Cal.4th 920, 968, abrogated on other grounds in People v. Lasko (2000) 23 Cal.4th 101, 109-111.) As for information about Galindo’s absence during the guilt and first penalty phases, it too bore no obvious relevance to the issue before the penalty retrial jury. Reed argues that the information highlighted the weakness of the 32 prosecution penalty phase case, as the first penalty phase jury deadlocked even without Galindo’s testimony. But this argument depends on information about the first jury’s deadlock being admissible –– it is not. Any other argument based on Galindo’s absence would serve only to attack the validity of the guilt phase verdict, something a defendant cannot do when offering lingering doubt evidence. (See Gay, supra, 42 Cal.4th at pp. 1223 [A “defendant may not ‘relitigate’ the guilt verdict.”], quoting State v. Teague (Tenn. 1995) 897 S.W.2d 248, 252.) Accordingly, no error resulted from failing to inform the jury of that fact.