Opinion ID: 844218
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Challenges to the Constitutionality of California's Death Penalty Statutes

Text: Defendant asserts that various aspects of California death penalty law violate his constitutional rights. We previously have rejected his contentions, and discern no persuasive reason to reconsider those decisions. `[W]e reiterate that the death penalty statutes adequately narrow the class of murderers eligible for the death penalty, are not impermissibly vague or overbroad, and do not result in an arbitrary and capricious or wanton and freakish penalty determination. [We] also have held that the statutes do not require that the prosecution carry the burden of proof or persuasion at the penalty phase, that the jury make written findings or reach unanimous decisions regarding aggravating factors, or that the jury find beyond a reasonable doubt that (1) the aggravating factors have been proved, (2) the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors, or (3) death is the appropriate sentence. Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000) 530 U.S. 466 [147 L.Ed.2d 435, 120 S.Ct. 2348] and Ring v. Arizona (2002) 536 U.S. 584 [153 L.Ed.2d 556, 122 S.Ct. 2428] do not render the statutes invalid; neither does Cunningham v. California (2007) 549 U.S. 270 [166 L.Ed.2d 856, 127 S.Ct. 856]. [Citation.] There is no violation of the equal protection of the laws as a result of the statutes' asserted failure to provide for capital defendants some procedural guarantees afforded to noncapital defendants.' The statutes are not invalid because they permit the jury to consider in aggravation, under section 190.3, factor (b), evidence of a defendant's unadjudicated offenses. [Citation.] `The use in the statutes, and in the standard jury instructions, of terms such as extreme, substantial, reasonably believed, and at the time of the offense in setting forth the mitigating factors does not impermissibly limit the mitigation evidence or otherwise result in an arbitrary or capricious penalty determination. The statutes, as translated into those standard jury instructions, adequately and properly describe the process by which the jury is to reach its penalty determination. There is no need to instruct the jury at the penalty phase (1) regarding a burden of proof, except as to section 190.3, factors (b) and (c), or the absence of a burden of proof, (2) regarding the meaning of the term mitigation, (3) that mitigating factors can be considered only in mitigation, (4) that if the mitigating evidence outweighs the aggravating evidence, the jury must impose a sentence of life without the possibility of parole, or (5) that the jury is not required to impose the death penalty even if it finds the aggravating evidence outweighs the mitigating evidence. The trial court need not omit from the instructions any mitigating factors that appear not to apply to the defendant's case.' [Citation.] ( Letner, supra, 50 Cal.4th at pp. 208-209.) The instructions also do not impermissibly permit the jury to consider nonstatutory aggravating factors. ( People v. Weaver (2001) 26 Cal.4th 876, 993 [111 Cal.Rptr.2d 2, 29 P.3d 103] ( Weaver ).) In the absence of a request from the defendant, the trial court is not obliged to instruct the jury not to double count the same facts as circumstances of the crime and as special circumstances pursuant to section 190.3, factor (a). ( People v. Welch (1999) 20 Cal.4th 701, 769 [85 Cal.Rptr.2d 203, 976 P.2d 754].) Nor is the trial court required to instruct the jury concerning (1) which factors are aggravating and which are mitigating ( People v. Taylor (2001) 26 Cal.4th 1155, 1180 [113 Cal.Rptr.2d 827, 34 P.3d 937]), (2) the absence of a requirement that the jurors unanimously agree upon the existence of a particular mitigating factor ( Weaver, supra, 26 Cal.4th at p. 988), (3) the meaning of a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole ( Rundle, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 187), or (4) the existence of a presumption in favor of a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole ( id. at p. 199). The existence of prosecutorial discretion in deciding in which cases the death penalty should be sought does not render that punishment unconstitutional. ( Rundle, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 199.) `There is no requirement that the trial court or this court engage in intercase proportionality review when examining a death verdict. A sentence of death that comports with state and federal statutory and constitutional law does not violate international law or norms, or the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.' ( Letner, supra, 50 Cal.4th at p. 209.) Also without merit is defendant's assertion that supposed inadequacies in the postconviction review of death judgments in the state and federal courts render his sentence unconstitutional. ( Redd, supra, 48 Cal.4th at p. 758.)