Opinion ID: 2594735
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Elements of Offenses, Lesser Included Offenses, and Specific Intent

Text: Section 190.3, factor (b), provides that in determining the appropriate sentence, the jury is to take into account criminal activity by the defendant that involved the use or attempted use of force or violence or the express or implied threat to use force or violence. Under this statute, the prosecution here introduced evidence of assaults by defendant, his brandishing of a firearm, his commission of robbery and attempted murder, and his attempt to dissuade a witness from testifying. The prosecution proposed that the trial court give the jury the standard instruction on proof of other criminal activity. (CALJIC No. 8.84.1.2.) That instruction stated that the jury could consider a prior criminal act as an aggravating circumstance only if the jury was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant had committed the act. During the instruction conference between the court and counsel, defense counsel suggested that the court modify the instruction to allow for the possibility that the jury might be convinced that defendant committed some but not all of the criminal acts asserted by the prosecution. During the discussion, defense counsel stated to the court that it should possibly have an instruction on each [act] individually and a definition of those particular crimes. The prosecutor responded that if the defense wanted an instruction on the elements of all the crimes, that's fine. To that, defense counsel subsequently said, I am not asking for any specific instructions. We reject defendant's claim that trial counsel should have asked for jury instructions on the elements of the various offenses that the prosecution offered as prior criminal activity, on any lesser included offenses, and on specific intent. A trial court need not instruct on the elements of the offenses of prior criminal activity introduced at the penalty phase unless the defense so requests. This rule recognizes that, for tactical reasons, defendants in the vast majority of cases do not want to risk highlighting prior violent crimes or alienating the jury with hypertechnical defenses to bad acts which otherwise seem clearly aggravating. ( People v. Tuilaepa, supra, 4 Cal.4th at p. 592, 15 Cal.Rptr.2d 382, 842 P.2d 1142.) Here, defense counsel may well have decided as a matter of trial strategy not to highlight, for example, defendant's putting a gun against the chest of victim Francisco Lopez and pulling the trigger without provocation. We find no ineffective representation.