Opinion ID: 1194691
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: issues arising at the penalty phase of the trial.

Text: Our reversal of the special circumstance finding renders it unnecessary to reach the issues raised in connection with the penalty phase of the trial. ( People v. Turner (1984) 37 Cal.3d 302, 329 [208 Cal. Rptr. 196, 690 P.2d 669].) Many of those issues, moreover, relate to questions of jury instruction which have been resolved in other decisions of this court. (See People v. Ramos (1984) 37 Cal.3d 136 [207 Cal. Rptr. 800, 689 P.2d 430]; People v. Lanphear (1984) 36 Cal.3d 163 [203 Cal. Rptr. 122, 680 P.2d 1081]; People v. Easley (1983) 34 Cal.3d 858 [196 Cal. Rptr. 309, 671 P.2d 813].) (4) We note, however, one issue briefed and argued here which has not been resolved by prior precedent: the question whether under the 1978 initiative the prosecution can present evidence at the penalty phase which is not relevant to any of the specific aggravating or mitigating factors listed in the 1978 law. We discuss this issue by way of guidance to the court upon retrial of the present case, and to assist the trial courts in the trial of other cases arising under that law. The prosecutor presented testimony from defendant's former probation and parole officers describing defendant's failure in various rehabilitative and disciplinary programs, and his reputation for violence in the community. He also presented evidence of numerous threats of violence, some of which violated no penal statute and thus do not constitute evidence of  criminal activity ... which involved ... the express or implied threat to use force or violence. (§ 190.3, subd. (b), italics added.) All of the cited evidence relates generally to defendant's character, background, history, and mental condition, but does not bear upon any of the specific aggravating or mitigating factors listed in the statute. The admissibility of evidence of this kind under the 1978 initiative raises an important and unsettled issue. The language of section 190.3 in the 1978 initiative permits introduction of evidence relevant to aggravation, mitigation and sentencing, with two exceptions: criminal activity not involving violence, and criminal activity of which the defendant was acquitted. It reads as follows: In the proceedings on the question of penalty, evidence may be presented by both the people and the defendant as to any matter relevant to aggravation, mitigation, and sentence including, but not limited to, the nature and circumstances of the present offense, any prior felony conviction ... the presence or absence of other criminal activity by the defendant which involved the use or attempted use of force or violence or which involved the express or implied threat to use force or violence, and the defendant's character, background, history, mental condition and physical condition. [¶] However, no evidence shall be admitted regarding other criminal activity by the defendant which did not involve the use or attempted use of force or violence or which did not involve the express or implied threat to use force or violence.... [¶] However, in no event shall evidence of prior criminal activity be admitted for an offense for which the defendant was prosecuted and acquitted. In People v. Murtishaw (1981) 29 Cal.3d 733, 773 [175 Cal. Rptr. 738, 631 P.2d 446], construing similar language in the 1977 act, we said that evidence of defendant's character and mental condition was admissible even if it did not relate to any specific aggravating or mitigating factor. (See also People v. Frierson (1979) 25 Cal.3d 142, 177 [158 Cal. Rptr. 281, 599 P.2d 587] (opn. of Richardson, J.).) The 1978 initiative, however, enacted a crucial change in the method by which the jury determines whether to impose the death penalty  a change which compels us to depart from our language in Murtishaw. Under the 1977 version of section 190.3, the jury must consider, take into account and be guided by the aggravating and mitigating circumstances enumerated in that section. The statute, however, provided no further guidance or limitation on the jury's sentencing discretion. In the absence of such a limitation, the jury was free, after considering the listed aggravating and mitigating factors, to consider any other matter it thought relevant to the penalty determination. The 1978 initiative, by contrast, provided specifically that the jury shall impose a sentence of death if [it] concludes that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances. If [it] determines that the mitigating circumstances outweigh the aggravating circumstances [it] shall impose a sentence of confinement in state prison for a term of life without the possibility of parole. (§ 190.3; see discussion in People v. Easley, supra, 34 Cal.3d 858, 881-882.) By thus requiring the jury to decide the appropriateness of the death penalty by a process of weighing the specific factors listed in the statute, the initiative necessarily implied that matters not within the statutory list are not entitled to any weight in the penalty determination. [5] The change from a statute in which the listed aggravating and mitigating factors merely guide the jury's discretion to one in which they limit its discretion requires us to reconsider the question of what evidence is relevant to aggravation, mitigation, and sentencing. (§ 190.3.) Relevant evidence means evidence ... having any tendency in reason to prove or disprove any disputed fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action.  (Evid. Code, § 210; see People v. Ortiz (1979) 95 Cal. App.3d 926, 933 [157 Cal. Rptr. 448].) (Italics added.) Since the jury must decide the question of penalty on the basis of the specific factors listed in the statute, the quoted language must refer to evidence relevant to those factors. Evidence of defendant's background, character, or conduct which is not probative of any specific listed factor would have no tendency to prove or disprove a fact of consequence to the determination of the action, and is therefore irrelevant to aggravation. The admission of prosecution evidence irrelevant to the enumerated factors would be inconsistent with the provisions in the 1978 law which expressly bar evidence of nonviolent crimes except for felony convictions. Those provisions implicate two related judgments: (a) that nonviolent misdemeanors are not important enough to be given any weight in deciding whether to impose a death penalty; and (b) that nonviolent felonies are entitled to some weight, but only if evidenced by a conviction  otherwise the time and trouble of proving the crime will outweigh its probative value. Those policy judgments necessarily imply that the prosecution should not be permitted to present evidence of noncriminal acts, [6] since such acts are presumably less significant than misdemeanors or unconvicted felonies, and cannot be readily proved by citing a past conviction. When the prosecution is permitted to introduce such evidence the penalty trial can become a spectacle in which witnesses recount numerous trivial incidents of misconduct and ill temper. The problems of prejudice, consumption of time, and diversion of effort which led to the rule against proving character by specific acts in an ordinary guilt trial (see Evid. Code, § 1101) would rearise in the penalty trial. Allowing prosecution evidence of background and character would also produce anomalous consequences, since some background and character evidence  that of nonviolent crimes  would still be specifically excluded by the terms of the statute. Thus, if evidence were offered of some nonviolent but disreputable act (a possible fraud, for example), the prosecution would argue that the act was not criminal, and thus admissible, while the defendant would claim his conduct was criminal and hence inadmissible. If evidence were offered of a violent act, the defense would again claim the act was criminal, and thus must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt (see People v. Robertson (1982) 33 Cal.3d 21, 29 [188 Cal. Rptr. 77, 655 P.2d 279]); the prosecutor would claim it was not criminal and thus not subject to any burden of proof. In short, whenever the prosecutor offers evidence of some act other than a violent crime or a felony conviction, he would be placed in the anomalous position of having to argue that the act was not criminal, while the defendant would be in the equally peculiar posture of asserting that his conduct was indeed criminal. This court's interpretation of the aggravating and mitigating factor of the 1978 law gives further support to our conclusion that evidence irrelevant to a listed factor is inadmissible. In People v. Easley, supra, 34 Cal.3d 858, 878, we took note of decisions of the United States Supreme Court which held that a sentencing jury may not be precluded from considering as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant's character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death. ( Lockett v. Ohio (1978) 438 U.S. 586, 604 [57 L.Ed.2d 973, 990, 102 S.Ct. 869]; Eddings v. Oklahoma (1982) 455 U.S. 104, 110 [71 L.Ed.2d 1, 8, 102 S.Ct. 869].) That holding posed the possibility that California's 1978 initiative was unconstitutional, since that law required the jury to fix penalty by weighing listed factors, none of which on its face appeared broad enough to encompass every aspect of the defendant's character and background he might advance for consideration. Our solution was to construe factor (k) of the 1978 act  any other circumstance which extenuates the gravity of the crime  as an open-ended provision permitting the jury to consider any mitigating evidence. ( People v. Easley, supra, at p. 878.) We specifically directed trial courts, in instructing on factor (k), to inform the jury that it may consider `any other circumstance which extenuates the gravity of the crime ...' and any other `aspect of [the] defendant's character or record ... that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death.' ( Id. at pp. 878-879, fn. 10, italics added.) The reasoning we used to sustain the validity of the 1978 initiative necessarily presumes that the jury can only consider evidence that bears upon a listed factor. It also requires a distinction between the evidence which may be offered by the defendant and that which may be offered by the prosecution as part of its case in chief at the penalty phase. The constitutional requirement of Eddings v. Oklahoma, supra, 455 U.S. 104, and Lockett v. Ohio, supra, 438 U.S. 586, now incorporated in factor (k), is that the jury be permitted to consider any aspect of defendant's character or record that he offers as a basis for a sentence less than death. There is no requirement that it also be permitted to consider any aspect the prosecution may offer as a basis for inflicting the death penalty. ( Zant v. Stephens, supra, 462 U.S. 862, 878-879, fn. 17 [77 L.Ed.2d 235, 251] made it clear that a state could constitutionally limit the prosecution to evidence of specific, limited aggravating factors.) The language of factor (k) refers to circumstances which extenuate the gravity of the crime, not to circumstances which enhance it. Consequently the prosecution's case for aggravation is limited to evidence relevant to the listed factors exclusive of factor (k)  since that factor encompasses only extenuating circumstances and circumstances offered as a basis for a sentence less than death  while the defense may present evidence relevant to any listed factor including (k). Once the defense has presented evidence of circumstances admissible under factor (k), however, prosecution rebuttal evidence would be admissible as evidence tending to disprove any disputed fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action. (Evid. Code, § 210.) We examine the evidence introduced at the penalty phase of the present case in light of the foregoing analysis.