Opinion ID: 1160457
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Instruction on Pity and Prejudice

Text: In accordance with the pattern instruction set out as CALJIC No. 1.00 (5th ed. 1988), as modified, the superior court told the jury: You must not be influenced by pity for a defendant or by prejudice against him or her. You must not be biased against the defendant because he or she has been arrested for this offense, charged with a crime, or brought to trial. None of these circumstances is evidence of guilt and you must not infer or assume from any or all of them that he or she is more likely to be guilty than innocent. You must not be influenced by prejudice, public opinion or public feeling. (Brackets omitted.) Where the instruction as delivered admonished against influence by prejudice, public opinion or public feeling, the unmodified pattern instruction admonished against influence by mere sentiment, conjecture, sympathy, passion, prejudice, public opinion or public feeling. (25) Defendant contends that the superior court erred by instructing as it did on pity and prejudice. Against a claim of this kind, an appellate court reviews a trial court's instruction independently: The underlying question is one of law, involving as it does the determination of ... applicable legal principles.... ( People v. Berryman, supra, 6 Cal.4th at p. 1089.) After independent review, we find no error. In People v. Hawthorne (1992) 4 Cal.4th 43, 73 [14 Cal. Rptr.2d 133, 841 P.2d 118], we concluded that, under California law, a trial court should indeed instruct the jury on pity and prejudice. The superior court gave a plainly adequate instruction on the issue. Although it did not expressly admonish against influence by mere sentiment, conjecture, sympathy, [or] passion, it did so impliedly by admonishing against influence by pity ... or ... prejudice.... In spite of what defendant appears to suggest, CALJIC No. 1.00 is not itself the law. Like other pattern instructions, it is merely an attempt at a statement thereof. [22]