Opinion ID: 1182062
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Failure to Specify Mental Illness as a Mitigating Circumstance

Text: (38) Defendant argues the court's instructions allowed the jury to use mental illness as an aggravating factor (see § 190.3, factor (d)) in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the federal Constitution. He points to the court's failure to label mental illness as a mitigating factor in its charge to the jury and its further instruction that jurors were to determine whether each of the listed factors was aggravating or mitigating. As we held in People v. Benson (1990) 52 Cal.3d 754, 801-803 [276 Cal. Rptr. 827, 802 P.2d 330], penalty phase jury instructions need not explicitly label a particular factor such as extreme mental or emotional disturbance as mitigating. The test is whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury ... understood the charge in a manner that violated defendant's rights. ( Id. at p. 801; Boyde v. California (1990) 494 U.S. 370 [108 L.Ed.2d 316, 110 S.Ct. 1190]; see also People v. Kelly (1992) 1 Cal.4th 495, 525-526 & fn. 7 [3 Cal. Rptr.2d 677, 822 P.2d 385] [reaffirming Boyde test].) No such reasonable likelihood is present here. Nothing in the charge suggested or implied that mental illness was an aggravating factor. The jury was told that it could act in response to feelings of sympathy and compassion if any of the factors evoked those feelings. A reasonable juror viewing the instructions as a whole would not have inferred that mental illness was a circumstance in aggravation or an indicium of future dangerousness. ( Benson, supra, 52 Cal.3d at p. 802.) The final arguments of the parties reinforced this view. The defense argued that mental illness was present and mitigated the offense. The prosecution did not dispute the mitigating effect of mental disturbance; it argued only that defendant was not under the influence of any such disturbance at the time the offense was committed. From the record, it appears defendant was fully accorded his Eighth Amendment right to a fair determination of penalty. [2]