Opinion ID: 1377787
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 22

Heading: Correcting Reference to Mandatory Penalty

Text: (37) Defendant also argues that the instructions were inadequate because the court interjected the admonition to disregard the prosecutor's argument, based on language in the 1978 death penalty statute, that imposition of the death penalty was mandatory if the jury found that aggravating circumstances outweighed mitigating. He claims that this admonition and the related instruction that you may use those.... But the way in which you go about it is up to you ... the law does not say you shall do one or the other were ambiguous. The latter reference to those might, he suggests, be understood to mean either that the jury could consider the aggravating or mitigating circumstances, or that the jury could determine the penalty in the manner proposed by the prosecutor. We disagree. The court properly and with some prescience, corrected the prosecutor and thereby avoided error of the type that necessitated reversal of the penalty in People v. Easley, supra, 34 Cal.3d 858, 884-885. That instruction adequately and correctly advised the jury that they were free to consider the relevant aggravating and mitigating circumstances but were not required by the law to impose either penalty based upon the outcome of a mechanical weighing process. [41]