Opinion ID: 1258767
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Ineffective Counsel Claim Age Factor

Text: (16) Defendant next contends his trial counsel was ineffective in failing to ask the court to include the subject of defendant's age as a potential mitigating factor. Unlike the case in which all the statutory sentencing factors are read to the jury, here the prosecutor and defense counsel stipulated that any inapplicable factors could be deleted. (Cf. People v. Marshall (1990) 50 Cal.3d 907, 932-933 [269 Cal. Rptr. 269, 790 P.2d 676].) The prosecutor had originally believed that defendant's age was an aggravating factor, but the court opined that age could only be a mitigating factor. (But see People v. Lucky (1988) 45 Cal.3d 259, 302 [247 Cal Rptr. 1, 753 P.2d 1052].) Accordingly, the prosecutor agreed to the deletion of age as a sentencing factor unless the defense wants it in and wants to argue it in mitigation. Defense counsel thereupon agreed to the deletion of age as a mitigating factor, reserving his right to point out to the jury his client's limited life span should life imprisonment without parole be selected as a penalty. (In fact, counsel presented such an argument.) Defendant now suggests that counsel's stipulation deprived defendant of an important mitigating factor. Under the circumstances here, the point lacks merit. Unlike the very youthful or elderly defendant, whose age may well constitute a significant mitigating factor, it is difficult to see how defendant's age (51 at time of trial) could have been viewed as a mitigating or extenuating circumstance. Counsel may well have chosen, as a tactical matter, to downplay references to age in light of the extreme youth of most of his victims. Moreover, despite the instructional omission, counsel was free to argue, and did argue, defendant's age as a relevant mitigating circumstance. Accordingly, it is not reasonably probable that counsel's omission affected the penalty verdict. (See Strickland v. Washington, supra, 466 U.S. 668, 694 [80 L.Ed.2d 674, 697-698].)