Opinion ID: 1236383
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 32

Heading: Reference to Suffering by Victims and Their Families.

Text: (25) Defendant contends that the prosecutor violated Booth v. Maryland (1987) 482 U.S. 496 [96 L.Ed.2d 440, 107 S.Ct. 2529] and South Carolina v. Gathers (1989) 490 U.S. 805 [104 L.Ed.2d 876, 109 S.Ct. 2207] by urging the jury to consider characteristics of the victims and the loss suffered by the victims' families. The allegedly objectionable references were made in response to defense counsel's argument that the jury should consider defendant's difficult childhood, including the fact that he had to become the man of the house at the age of eight, as illustrated by a photograph of defendant at his father's funeral. [4] The prosecutor stated: I want you to think about this. I want you to look at this picture very hard. When you have got it back there in that room look at it. How hurtful it was at the time or hurtful it is when you see it years later. But remember the Aceves family. Replace all these faces. Put Anthony Aceves in the casket. Put Anthony Aceves in that casket. Put his family around it. Because it happened two years ago they are not victims? They are hurt. He should be given compassion? The way he executed that boy? Think about the parents and the family of Gilbert Martinez. When they were standing around his casket and they were crying and they were saying `My God, how could this happen to my child?' Marlene Wells. When she was on the ground and the defendant was standing over her and putting two bullets in the back of her head just before she is looking up at him. `Don't kill me.' Begging for her life. And he shoots her brutally in the back of the head. Think about it. They are funerals. Every time you look at this funeral photograph produced by the defense you think of their funerals. You think of their families. And you are called upon to impose death in cases like this when it's so aggravated. How many people must he kill? During the pendency of this appeal, both Booth v. Maryland, supra, 482 U.S. 496 and South Carolina v. Gathers, supra, 490 U.S. 805, were largely overruled. In Payne v. Tennessee (1991) 501 U.S.  [115 L.Ed.2d 720, 111 S.Ct. 2597], the United States Supreme Court held that the use of victim impact evidence does not offend the Eighth Amendment guaranty of an individualized penalty assessment in a capital trial. We have since held that the injury inflicted by the defendant  including evidence about the victim and the impact of the crime on the victim's family  is one of the circumstances of the crime, evidence of which is admissible under section 190.3, factor (a). ( People v. Edwards, supra, 54 Cal.3d 787, 833-836; People v. Fierro (1991) 1 Cal.4th 173, 234-235 [3 Cal. Rptr.2d 426, 821 P.2d 1302].) The prosecutor's remarks were permissible under the principles set forth in Payne v. Tennessee, supra, 501 U.S.  [115 L.Ed.2d 720, 111 S.Ct. 2597] and People v. Edwards, supra, 54 Cal.3d 787. Accordingly, defendant's claim must be rejected.