Opinion ID: 1801948
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Alleged error in including both burglary and robbery in instruction regarding other criminal activity

Text: During the prosecution's penalty phase case'in'chief, James Foster testified that in October 1985 he lived in an apartment in Bakersfield. One day that month, Foster came home from work around lunchtime to change clothes. A coworker, Jessie Cruz, was with him. When Foster went to the bedroom, he noticed the sliding glass door was open. He turned around and saw defendant coming out of the closet carrying a small handgun. Defendant pointed the gun at Foster and said something like don't move or I'm going to shoot you. At defendant's direction, Foster then called Cruz into the bedroom. Defendant pointed the gun at both of them and forced them to lie down. He then bound their hands and feet with cords and clothing he found in the room. While Foster was tied up, he heard defendant going through the room, pulling out the phone cords and cocking and uncocking the gun. Foster feared for his life. After about 10 or 15 minutes, defendant left, taking with him a portable personal stereo and other household items. The prosecution also presented evidence that defendant once picked up his girlfriend's young son by the hair and pushed him to the ground. The prosecution presented no evidence of any other unadjudicated criminal activity by defendant. As previously noted, the jurors were instructed pursuant to a modified version of CALJIC No. 8.87 that they could consider, as aggravating circumstances, the crimes of residential burglary and residential robbery, if they found beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant had committed those crimes. Defendant now asserts the trial court erred by including both residential burglary and residential robbery in the instruction because both the burglary and the robbery of Foster and Cruz were based on the same act of violence. He contends the instruction should not have included burglary, and argues the error violated his rights under state law and the federal Constitution. (32) We perceive no error. The basic principles are well established. Although any prior felony conviction may be considered in aggravation (§ 190.3, factor (c)), evidence of criminal activity for which the defendant has not been convicted may be considered only if it involved the use or attempted use of force or violence or the express or implied threat to use force or violence against a person. (§ 190.3, factor (b); see People v. Boyd (1985) 38 Cal.3d 762, 776-777 [215 Cal.Rptr. 1, 700 P.2d 782].) Residential burglary is entering a residence with the intent to steal or to commit any other felony. (§§ 459, 460.) Force or violence against a person thus is not an essential element of residential burglary. However, a burglary perpetrated in a violent or threatening manner may be considered under section 190.3, factor (b). (See, e.g., People v. Farnam (2002) 28 Cal.4th 107, 176 [121 Cal.Rptr.2d 106, 47 P.3d 988] [evidence that defendant, armed with a pipe, attempted to break into victim's hotel room and threatened victim with the pipe was admissible under factor (b)]; see generally People v. Grant (1988) 45 Cal.3d 829, 851 [248 Cal.Rptr. 444, 755 P.2d 894] [§ 190.3, factor (b) includes both crimes that are necessarily violent and crimes that were perpetrated in a violent or threatening manner].) Here, there was no evidence that defendant used force or violence or the threat of force or violence against any person at the time he entered Foster's residence. But defendant concedes, as he must, that evidence of the burglary was properly admitted as part of a course of conduct that included the forceful and violent robbery of Foster and Cruz. ( People v. Cooper (1991) 53 Cal.3d 771, 840-841 [281 Cal.Rptr. 90, 809 P.2d 865]; see also People v. Coffman and Marlow (2004) 34 Cal.4th 1, 110 [17 Cal.Rptr.3d 710, 96 P.3d 30].) Defendant also concedes, as he must, that his burglary of Foster's residence was considered a crime of violence because after entering the residence appellant used a gun to rob the victims. Accordingly, the circumstance that the entry itself was not violent did not compel the trial court to omit instructions on burglary. (See People v. Clair (1992) 2 Cal.4th 629, 676-677 [7 Cal.Rptr.2d 564, 828 P.2d 705]; see also id. at p. 680 [evidence of burglary was admissible under § 190.3, factor (b) where the jury reasonably could find that defendant was not armed at the time he entered but, after entering, he took up a knife and used it to impliedly threaten anyone who might interfere]; but see People v. Cooper, supra, 53 Cal.3d at p. 841 [although evidence of nonviolent crimes committed during the same course of conduct as violent crimes was properly admitted, the trial court erred in instructing the jury on the elements of the nonviolent crimes such as burglary].) Defendant's argument thus boils down to a claim that the instruction impermissibly allowed the jury to count the burglary and the robbery as two aggravating circumstances even though both crimes arose from a only single act of violence. He explains: Th[e] use of force by appellant that rendered the burglary a crime of violence [(i.e., his use of a gun to rob the victims)] was the same conduct that was the basis of the residential robbery. In other words, appellant committed one act of violence that resulted in a residential robbery and a residential burglary that involved the use of force. Under these circumstances, appellant's criminal conduct should have been considered as only one aggravating circumstance. The court's instruction, however, indicated to the jury that it should view the residential burglary and residential robbery as separate aggravating circumstances in determining penalty, thus permitting the multiple use of the same act of violence. This double use of both the residential burglary and residential robbery as aggravating circumstances artificially inflated the prosecution's case for the death penalty. [33] Defendant cites no authority that directly supports his argument, and we are aware of none. Certainly, the language of section 190.3, factor (b), does not by its terms prohibit instructions on both a burglary and a robbery that arose out of the same course of conduct and involved the same act of violence. That factor permits the jury to consider as aggravating [t]he presence . . . of criminal activity by the defendant which involved the use or attempted use of force or violence or the express or implied threat to use force or violence. ( Ibid. ) Nothing in this language prohibits the jury from considering separate aggravating circumstances based on separate crimes involving the same acts of violence or threats of violence. Nor does defendant point to evidence of any legislative intent to prohibit such consideration. (33) Defendant asserts such double counting of a single act of violence in the penalty calculus violates the principles of section 654, which bars multiple punishment for separate offenses arising out of a single occurrence when all of the offenses were incident to one objective (see Neal v. State of California (1960) 55 Cal.2d 11, 19 [9 Cal.Rptr. 607, 357 P.2d 839]), as well as his rights to a reliable penalty determination and due process of law under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal Constitution. Defendant relies on People v. Melton, supra, 44 Cal.3d 713, but in that case we rejected a claim similar to defendant's claim here. The defendant in Melton was convicted of first degree murder with special circumstances of robbery murder and burglary murder (see § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(A) & (G)) and sentenced to death. (34) On appeal, the defendant argued that the Eighth Amendment barred the jury from considering the two special circumstances as separate aggravating factors under section 190.3, factor (a), which permits the jury to consider in aggravation [t]he circumstances of the crime of which the defendant was convicted in the present proceeding and the existence of any special circumstances found to be true, because both the robbery and the burglary arose from a single indivisible course of conduct with a single criminal intent. We rejected the claim, concluding it is constitutionally legitimate for the state to determine that a death-eligible murderer is more culpable, and thus more deserving of death, if he not only robbed the victim but committed an additional and separate felonious act, burglary, in order to facilitate the robbery and murder. Robbery involves an assaultive invasion of personal integrity; burglary a separate invasion of the sanctity of the home. Society may deem the violation of each of these distinct interests separately relevant to the seriousness of a capital crime. ( People v. Melton, supra, 44 Cal.3d at p. 767.) (35) We also rejected defendant's claim based on section 654, holding that section does not preclude a capital penalty jury from considering that the murder was committed in the course of both a robbery and a burglary. ( People v. Melton, supra, 44 Cal.3d at p. 768; see also People v. Ervine (2009) 47 Cal.4th 745, 790-791 [102 Cal.Rptr.3d 786, 220 P.3d 820].) (36) Similarly here, we perceive no constitutional impediment to the jury's consideration under section 190.3, factor (b) of both a robbery and a burglary that arose out of a single violent act. The purpose of the penalty phase is to enable the jury to make an individualized determination of the appropriate penalty based on the character of the defendant and the circumstances of the crime. (See People v. Jackson (2009) 45 Cal.4th 662, 699 [88 Cal.Rptr.3d 558, 199 P.3d 1098].) Just as society may deem the invasion of personal integrity and the invasion of the sanctity of the home separately relevant to the seriousness of a capital crime (see People v. Melton, supra, 44 Cal.3d at p. 767), so may it deem the violation of these distinct interests separately relevant to the seriousness of an unadjudicated criminal offense offered in aggravation. Further, that the defendant invaded both of these separate interests in one incident is relevant to an assessment of his character regardless of whether both criminal acts involved the same use of force. (37) Nor does section 654 prohibit a penalty phase jury from considering separate crimes based on the same act or acts of force or violence. The death penalty statutes employ principles manifestly at odds with the sentencing rules derived from section 654 and, [t]o the extent they diverge, section 190.3, the more specific, must prevail over section 654. ( People v. Melton, supra, 44 Cal.3d at pp. 767-768.) As explained above, nothing in section 190.3, factor (b), prohibits the consideration of multiple criminal acts based on the same act of violence. To the extent section 654 would limit such consideration, section 190.3 rather than section 654 controls. To the extent defendant argues the trial court erred by failing to instruct the jury not to double count the violence underlying the burglary and robbery, his claim lacks merit. In Melton, we acknowledged a theoretical problem presented by the language of section 190.3, factor (a), which tells the jury to consider both the circumstances of the crime and the special circumstances found true. We agreed that a jury given no clarifying instructions might conceivably double count any circumstances that were also special circumstances, and we held that, upon the defendant's request, a trial court should instruct the jury not to do so. ( People v. Melton, supra, 44 Cal.3d at p. 768.) It is doubtful whether the same principles apply here; defendant complains not that the jury might double count the circumstance that defendant committed a burglary or the circumstance that defendant committed a robbery, but rather that it might give undue weight to the violence underlying both criminal acts. In any event, defendant did not request a clarifying instruction; he therefore cannot complain of the trial court's failure to provide one. ( People v. Arias (1996) 13 Cal.4th 92, 171 [51 Cal.Rptr.2d 770, 913 P.2d 980].) Finally, even assuming instructional error, it was harmless under any standard. [T]he jury was fully aware of the facts of the [Foster and Cruz offenses] and could validly consider them in deciding penalty. ( People v. Melton, supra, at pp. 768-769; accord People v. Cooper, supra, 53 Cal.3d at p. 841.) Further, the jury was instructed that the weighing of aggravating and mitigating circumstances does not mean a mere mechanical counting of factors on each side of an imaginary scale or the arbitrary assignment of weights to any of them. You are free to assign whatever moral or sympathetic value you deem appropriate to each and all of the various factors you are permitted to consider. In light of this instruction, it is unlikely that the jurors, exercising common sense, believed they should `weigh' the violence underlying the burglary and the robbery twice on the penalty `scale.' ( People v. Melton, supra, at p. 769.) The prosecutor did not exploit any ambiguity in the instructions or ask the jury to double count the violence underlying the two crimes; rather, she simply emphasized that defendant had brutally tied up and callously threatened the victims, for no reason other than to steal a few items. (See People v. Melton, supra, 44 Cal.3d at p. 769.) Accordingly, there is no reasonable possibility that any conceivable error affected the penalty verdict ( People v. Brown, supra, 46 Cal.3d at pp. 447-448), and any error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt ( Chapman v. California, supra, 386 U.S. at p. 24).