Opinion ID: 2636899
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Special circumstances instruction.

Text: The court instructed the jury that to find true the multiple-murder special-circumstances allegation it must find That the Defendant in this case has been convicted of more than one offense of murder in the first or second degree. Appellant contends that the court erred in failing to instruct that at least one of the murders had to be first degree murder and that the defendant had the specific intent to kill each victim. [28] The short answer to this claim is that any error in failing to include those elements was harmless. The jury had convicted appellant of two counts of first degree murder on a theory of intentional, premeditated, and deliberate murder. There is no possibility that, had those elements been set out in the special circumstances instruction, a different verdict would have been returned. Indeed, defense counsel declined the opportunity to argue the special circumstance issue, stating, [T]he matter seems rather self-evident. We'd just submit the matter.