Opinion ID: 2590211
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Failure to Instruct on Additional Requirements of 1977 Death Penalty Law

Text: Defendant contends, and the Attorney General agrees, the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury, with respect to the Hughes, Young, Keith and Klingbeil murder charges, regarding the requirements of the multiple-murder special circumstance under 1977 death penalty law. Instead, the jury was instructed on the corresponding requirements of the 1978 death penalty law with CALJIC No. 8.81.3 (5th ed.1988), as follows: To find the special circumstance, referred to in these instructions as multiple murder convictions, is true, it must be proved: [f] The defendant has in this case been convicted of at least one crime of murder of the first degree as to counts 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18 or 19 and one or more crimes of murder of the first or second degree. The trial court should have instructed the jury on the 1977 law's requirement that the defendant have been personally present during the commission of the act or acts causing death and, with the intent to cause death, physically aided or committed such acts. The omission, nevertheless, was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. ( Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705; see People v. Johnson (1993) 6 Cal.4th 1, 45-6, 23 Cal.Rptr.2d 593, 859 P.2d 673.) The jury effectively, albeit impliedly, determined each issue adversely to him by returning the verdicts and making the findings that it did under other, proper instructions.