Opinion ID: 2600070
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Retrial following jury deadlock at first penalty trial

Text: Defendant contends that in permitting a second jury to decide penalty after the first jury deadlocked on that question, the trial court violated his rights under the Eighth Amendment and other federal and state constitutional provisions. Armed with a lengthy string citation to statutes of other jurisdictions that mandate a sentence of life without parole if the penalty jury deadlocks, defendant asserts that California is out of step with an emerging national consensus against allowing retrial under these circumstances. (25) We have previously found no constitutional infirmity in a death verdict rendered by a second penalty phase jury at a retrial following the first jury's deadlock on sentencing, notwithstanding that the second jury had not heard all of the guilt phase evidence. ( People v. Hawkins (1995) 10 Cal.4th 920, 966-967 [42 Cal.Rptr.2d 636, 897 P.2d 574]; People v. Gurule (2002) 28 Cal.4th 557, 645 [123 Cal.Rptr.2d 345, 51 P.3d 224].) Although we have never addressed the precise Eighth Amendment challenge defendant raises, we have determined that California's asserted status as being in the minority of jurisdictions worldwide that impose capital punishment does not establish that our death penalty scheme per se violates the Eighth Amendment. ( People v. Thornton (2007) 41 Cal.4th 391, 470 [61 Cal.Rptr.3d 461, 161 P.3d 3]; see People v. Moon (2005) 37 Cal.4th 1, 47-48 [32 Cal.Rptr.3d 894, 117 P.3d 591].) Likewise here, that California is among the handful of states that allows a penalty retrial following jury deadlock on penalty does not, in and of itself, establish a violation of the Eighth Amendment or evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society. ( Trop v. Dulles (1958) 356 U.S. 86, 101 [2 L.Ed.2d 630, 78 S.Ct. 590].) Arguing points more typically raised in a claim of double jeopardy, defendant further contends that compelling a capital defendant to endure the `embarrassment, expense and ordeal' ( United States v. Scott (1978) 437 U.S. 82, 95 [57 L.Ed.2d 65, 98 S.Ct. 2187]) of a second trial on the question of whether he should live or die is inconsistent with Eighth Amendment principles. But, as defendant concedes, in Sattazahn v. Pennsylvania (2003) 537 U.S. 101, 108-110 [154 L.Ed.2d 588, 123 S.Ct. 732], the high court held that the double jeopardy clause did not bar a penalty retrial after appellate reversal of the capital defendant's conviction, notwithstanding that in accordance with Pennsylvania law, the defendant had been sentenced to life without parole following juror deadlock at the penalty phase. Given that the double jeopardy clause permits retrial following juror deadlock under such circumstances, we fail to see how subjecting defendant to retrial of the penalty phase in this case could offend the constitutional proscription against cruel and unusual punishment.