Opinion ID: 2590272
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Special instructions regarding mitigating factors

Text: Defendant contends the trial court's refusal to give his proffered instructions concerning the distinction between (and the proper use of) aggravating and mitigating factors violated his rights under the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and parallel provisions of the state Constitution. These instructions would have advised the jury, in varied ways, that they might consider any evidence in mitigation including specifically the absence of prior felony convictionsand that any mitigating factor, standing alone, could support a determination that death was not the appropriate punishment in this case. Defendant also sought to have the jury instructed that the view of any one juror that a factor in mitigation exists is sufficient to allow any other juror to consider such factor to have been established, and that the jurors may require a degree of certaintyfor proof of guiltgreater than proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Defendant contends his requested special instructions merely supplemented the general principles contained in the pattern CALJIC instructions rendered by the court. In asserting error in the trial court's rejection of his proposed instructions, defendant contends, again, that CALJIC No. 8.85 is defective. He asserts that his proffered special instructions would have corrected those defects, but the sole specific example he provides is that one of his instructions would have informed the jury that the absence of any prior felony conviction incurred by defendant could not be treated as a factor in aggravation but only as mitigation. The pattern instruction, however, does not suggest that the absence of any mitigating factor should be considered in aggravation. ( People v. Page (2008) 44 Cal.4th 1, 51 [79 Cal.Rptr.3d 4, 186 P.3d 395].) As noted above, we repeatedly have held CALJIC No. 8.85 to be correct and adequate. ( People v. Valencia, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 309.) There was no error.