Opinion ID: 2630185
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Denial of Automatic Application to Modify the Sentence

Text: Defendant contends the trial court erred in denying his automatic application to modify the death verdict under section 190.4 and that the error violated his right to due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. In ruling on the motion, the judge shall review the evidence, consider, take into account, and be guided by the aggravating and mitigating circumstances referred to in Section 190.3, and shall make a determination as to whether the jury's findings and verdicts that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances are contrary to law or the evidence presented. (ง 190.4, subd. (e).) The judge must state on the record the reason for his or her findings. ( Ibid. ) On appeal, we independently review the trial court's ruling after reviewing the record, but we do not determine the penalty de novo. ( People v. Steele (2002) 27 Cal.4th 1230, 1267 [120 Cal.Rptr.2d 432, 47 P.3d 225].) The trial court satisfied these statutory requirements. It reviewed, on the record and in detail, the aggravating and mitigating factors listed in section 190.3 and stated its independent judgment that the weight of the evidence supported the jury's verdict of death. Although defendant, acting as his own attorney during the penalty phase, presented no mitigating evidence, the court considered in mitigation that he had behaved in an exemplary fashion throughout the trial and that he may have taken methamphetamine on the night of the crime, although there was no evidence this impaired his judgment in any way. In contending the trial court's findings were not supported by substantial evidence, defendant repeats his arguments, discussed and rejected above, that insufficient evidence in the record supported his guilt either as the shooter or as an aider and abettor. In addition to reiterating these contentions, defendant contests the following inferences and findings by the trial court, all of which we uphold as supported by substantial evidence: The trial court described defendant as a major beneficiary of the murder because he acquired the victim's car and some of his property. Defendant disputes he could be described as a major beneficiary because, he argues, he ended up burning the car, and Mercurio and his girlfriend ended up with most of the furniture from Gitmed's storage locker. But neither the fact defendant eventually burned the car in order to conceal the crime nor that he decided to give Mercurio some of the property he took from the storage locker reduces his status as a major beneficiary to the crime. Defendant disputes the trial court's finding that the police found many of Gitmed's belongings in the possession of defendant's relatives. As discussed above, however, police found Gitmed's jacket and duffel bag in the trunk of defendant's mother's car. (21) Defendant challenges the trial court's finding he showed no remorse. The court based its finding on defendant's burning the car to conceal the crime and his comments about the man floating in Canyon Lake. The trial court's comments about lack of remorse, furthermore, were permissible as indicating the absence of evidence of the mitigating factor of remorse, which, as defendant acknowledges, is a proper consideration in reweighing the balance of aggravating and mitigating factors. ( People v. Crittenden (1994) 9 Cal.4th 83, 149-151 [36 Cal.Rptr.2d 474, 885 P.2d 887].) Defendant's boasting to Danny Dalton about leaving someone floating in the lake certainly supports the trial court's finding that defendant lacked remorse. Finally, defendant challenges the trial court's comments about his murder of Floyce Fox as an aggravating factor of past criminal activity. The trial court noted similarities between the murders of Fox and Gitmed. The trial court stated defendant killed Fox, an inebriated man in a remote area, for the purposes of acquiring his worldly possessions and his vehicle. Defendant contends there was no evidence for the conclusion that theft was a motive for Fox's murder. But, as previously detailed, evidence supports the inference that theft was a motive: Fox's body was found with his pockets turned inside out and, after the murder, defendant drove off with Fox's car and used his credit cards.