Opinion ID: 1291295
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Argument and Instruction on Prison Conditions and Meaning of Life Without Parole

Text: Defendant contends the trial court, by sustaining objections to defense counsel's penalty phase argument and refusing an instruction on the sentence of life without parole, deprived him of a fair opportunity to rebut the prosecutor's argument on certain points in violation of his rights under the due process clause and the Eighth Amendment. We take his claims one by one. First, defendant complains the court sustained an objection and instructed the jury to disregard a portion of his counsel's argument discussing other murderers, assertedly worse than defendant, who were or were not sentenced to death; this was proper argument, defendant contends, as rebuttal to the prosecutor's argument that the present murder was more brutal than a simple felony murder. Contrary to defendant's current contention, his trial attorney was in fact permitted to, and did, argue substantially in rebuttal to the prosecutor's point. Without objection, counsel argued this crime was not the worst of the worst compared to other murders and that the death penalty should be saved for the cold-blooded killers, ... the mass murderer, the brutal assassin ... the cold-blooded drive-by killers of children.... When counsel mentioned other special circumstances subjecting murderers to the death penalty (A person previously convicted of a murder. A person who kills two or more people, killing law enforcement officers and other government officials in connection with their duty), the court sustained a prosecutorial objection, but did not strike the argument or instruct the jury to ignore it. Only when counsel invoked Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan, who live today, did the court admonish the jury, [t]he argument of Mr. Blum as to the present status of Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan is improper, and you must not consider it for any purpose on the issue of penalty in this case.... The court did not err in excluding references to the notorious but unrelated crimes of Charles Manson or to the penalty of life imprisonment that he ultimately received. ( People v. Sanders (1995) 11 Cal.4th 475, 555, 46 Cal.Rptr.2d 751, 905 P.2d 420.) The same holds for the reference to Sirhan Sirhan. To the extent the court erred in sustaining an objection to the argument that some other special circumstances define worse crimes than this felony murder, no prejudice appears, under any standard, as nothing in the record suggests counsel had additional argument on this particular point he was precluded from presenting, and counsel did, as we have seen, argue without objection that this crime was not as bad as many other types of murder. Second, defendant claims the court erred in precluding argument on conditions defendant would face in state prison were he sentenced to life without parole; such argument, he contends, was proper rebuttal to the prosecutor's argument that he was likely to be a future danger because he had possessed shanks and a handmade handcuff key (a flattened paper clip) while in county jail awaiting trial. Again, the record does not support defendant's contention his trial attorney was precluded from rebutting the prosecution argument by discussing prison conditions. Without objection, and in direct response to the prosecutor's argument, trial counsel told the jury defendant had prepared himself for state prison by body building, because [w]here he's going he's not going to have any knives. He's not going to be in the county jail with people who have been charged with misdemeanors and drunk driving and things like that. He will be in maximum security in some of the toughest prisons in California, and believe me, they're not going to tolerate any knives. I don't think that's anything that we have to worry about. Only later in his argument, when counsel, in order to persuade the jury that defendant would be adequately punished by a life sentence, began to describe maximum security conditions in detail (500 inmates per block in a two-man cell, one shelf to put your stuff on, there's a little sink there. I believe that they don't have any toilet seats on the toilets), did the court sustain an objection and admonish the jury not to consider the issue of prison conditions. Because defendant contends only that argument on conditions of confinement was proper rebuttal on the question of future dangerousness, and because, as seen above, defense counsel actually made such rebuttal argument without objection, we need not determine whether [additional evidence or argument on the severity of confinement] would have been admissible [or proper] as a `matter relevant to ... [the] sentence.' ( People v. Mason (1991) 52 Cal.3d 909, 962, 277 Cal.Rptr. 166, 802 P.2d 950, ellipsis and final bracketed text in original.) Defendant relies upon a remark in People v. Daniels (1991) 52 Cal.3d 815, 277 Cal.Rptr. 122, 802 P.2d 906. In the course of holding that Daniels's proposed evidence on probable conditions of confinement was properly excluded at trial, we paraphrased People v. Thompson (1988) 45 Cal.3d 86, 139, 246 Cal.Rptr. 245, 753 P.2d 37 as stating that [w]hile defendant might have an interest in telling the jurors of the horrors of execution or the rigors of confinement in order to impress upon them the gravity of their responsibility, that interest could be satisfied in his argument. ( People v. Daniels, supra, at pp. 877-878, 277 Cal.Rptr. 122, 802 P.2d 906.) Defendant, however, does not contend his trial attorney's additional argument on the unpleasantness of a maximum security cell was proper as an attempt to impress upon the jury the gravity of their decision, but only as rebuttal to the prosecutor's future-dangerousness argument. It was irrelevant on that point, and, in any event, defense counsel had already made his rebuttal argument that in state prison defendant would not be able to carry shanks as he had in county jail. Finally, defendant contends the court should, in light of the prosecutor's argument on future dangerousness, have given an instruction earlier proposed by the defense and rejected by the court, that life without the possibility of parole means that defendant will never have a parole hearing and will never be released from prison. Acknowledging that we have several times held such an instruction should not be given (see, e.g., People v. Jones (1997) 15 Cal.4th 119, 189-190, 61 Cal.Rptr.2d 386, 931 P.2d 960, overruled on another point by People v. Hill (1998) 17 Cal.4th 800, 823, fn. 1, 72 Cal.Rptr.2d 656, 952 P.2d 673; People v. Thompson, supra, 45 Cal.3d at pp. 129-131, 246 Cal. Rptr. 245, 753 P.2d 37), even when the prosecutor has emphasized the defendant's future dangerousness (see People v. Arias, supra, 13 Cal.4th at p. 173, 51 Cal.Rptr.2d 770, 913 P.2d 980), defendant contends the instruction was nonetheless required in his case because the prosecutor's future-dangerousness argument was not limited to in-prison violence but mentioned defendant's possible plans to escape. We see no material distinction from the above cases, however. If the prosecutor had improperly suggested defendant might be a future danger to the public at large because he could be paroled, defendant's argument for an additional instruction might have some force. But the prosecutor's reference to a possible future escape did not raise the issue of parole in any way, and thus did not require the court to give any special instruction on the subject.