Opinion ID: 2507854
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evidence of Vandalism as an Aggravating Factor

Text: Factor (b) of section 190.3 directs the trier of fact to consider [t]he presence or absence of criminal activity by the defendant which involved the use or attempted use of force or violence or the express or implied threat to use force or violence. Factor (b) encompasses only those threats of violence that are directed against persons, not property. ( People v. Kirkpatrick (1994) 7 Cal.4th 988, 1016, 30 Cal.Rptr.2d 818, 874 P.2d 248; People v. Boyd (1985) 38 Cal.3d 762, 776, 215 Cal. Rptr. 1, 700 P.2d 782.) Invoking Kirkpatrick and Boyd, defendant claims that the admission of evidence concerning the vandalism of the Marshalls' van on May 27, 1990, was outside the scope of factor (b) and, because it deprived him of a state-created liberty interest, also violated the federal Constitution. He is mistaken. Claudia Jones-Marshall testified that in the early morning hours of May 27, 1990  a couple of days after defendant marked her sidewalk with graffiti, insulted and assaulted her husband, and was arrested  she was awakened by a noise. She looked out the window and saw people hitting her van with a cement block. Defendant was scratching WSA, the initials of his gang, on the side of the van. As the prosecution's gang expert, Alfonso Valdez, explained, the vandalism was a warning to the Marshalls not to mess with the gang. The purpose of the act was to instill fear. Thus, the act of vandalism unquestionably qualified as an express or implied threat to use force or violence against the Marshalls under factor (b). Defendant then argues that even if the act could have been viewed as a threat against the Marshalls, the instructions permitted the jury to consider it as an aggravating factor even if it believed only that the vandalism was a crime against property. He relies on the jury instruction that defined a threat of force or violence under section 140: Every person who willfully threatens to use force or violence upon the person of a witness to, or victim of, a crime or any other person, or to take, damage, or destroy any property of any witness, victim, or any other person, because the witness, victim, or informant has provided any assistance or information to a law enforcement officer or to a public prosecutor in a criminal proceeding or juvenile court proceeding, is guilty of the crime of threat of force or violence because of assistance in prosecution under Penal Code Section 140. Defendant reasons that, under this instruction, the jury could have believed he committed the crime of threat of force or violence if he merely acted to take, damage, or destroy any property of any witness, victim, or any other person without any finding that such conduct constituted a threat against a person. Defendant, however, fails to consider the further limitation contained in CALJIC No. 8.87 which, as modified for this trial, instructed the jury that it may consider the implied threat of force or violence against Calvin and Claudia Marshall ... on May 27, 1990 only under specified conditions: You may not consider crimes against property as an act of violence in and of itself, but may only consider such evidence if you determine it to be directly related to a threat of violence upon another. If you do not so find, a crime against property is not a crime of violence to be considered as an [aggravating] factor. In other words, even if the jury believed the act of vandalism did not constitute a threat against the Marshalls but was merely vandalism against property, they would have understood from the other instructions that a crime against property could not be considered as an aggravating factor. Hence, it is not reasonably likely the jury would have interpreted the instructions in the way defendant suggests. We therefore reject his state claim of error as well as the federal constitutional claim on which it depends.