Opinion ID: 1405837
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Overlap of section 190.3, factors (a) and (b); conviction and special circumstances as aggravating factors.

Text: Defendant next urges that the refusal of his proffered instructions ( ante, at p. 518) improperly allowed inflation or double counting of aggravating factors in two other respects. (22) The standard instructions given, he notes, fail to explain that the violent criminal activity described in factor (b) of section 190.3 includes only conduct other than the circumstances of the present offense described in factor (a). Further, he urges, the final instructions erroneously allowed the jury to consider the fact of the underlying first degree murder conviction, and the fact that special circumstances were found true, as separate aggravating factors. We have suggested that future juries should be instructed on the distinction between factors (a) and (b), but that omission of such instructions will rarely be prejudicial. The jury is unlikely to give undue weight to particular facts simply because they appear to fit into more than one statutory category. (E.g., Melton, supra, 44 Cal.3d at p. 763.) The prosecutor did not exploit any ambiguity by urging that the circumstances of the current offense should be counted twice in aggravation. Defendant's remaining claims simply lack merit. The court's instructions, phrased in the language of section 190.3, did not encourage the jury to double-count the underlying conviction of murder. They simply, and properly, permitted it to consider the facts surrounding the particular offense to determine whether the nature of the capital crime was so aggravated as to weigh in favor of the death penalty. Of course, the statute expressly permits the jury to consider the existence of any special circumstances found to be true.... (§ 190.3, factor (a).) For obvious reasons, the specific facts which validly rendered the underlying murder eligible for the death penalty are especially pertinent to the choice of punishment. Re-use of the special circumstance findings for this purpose is not unfair. Of course, factor (a) exhibits some internal duplication if construed literally, since the special circumstances found ... true are a subset of the circumstances of the present offense. However, as noted, juries are unlikely to double-count particular facts on this basis. The prosecutor made no such suggestion here. We see no ground for reversal.