Opinion ID: 1399120
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Prosecutor's Alleged Allusion to Penalty Phase During Guilt Phase Opening Statement

Text: (43) Defendant complains that impropriety in the prosecutor's guilt phase opening statement tainted the jury's penalty determination. Near the end of his statement, after outlining what he expected the evidence to prove, the prosecutor said: Based on that evidence, ladies and gentlemen, at the end of the guilt phase, I will ask you to find Curtis Fauber guilty of first degree murder. Defendant asserts that the use of the words guilt phase implied that there inevitably would be a penalty phase, that the guilt phase was merely a formality. Defendant waived the point by failure to object. ( People v. Green, supra, 27 Cal.3d 1, 27.) In any event, we find it meritless. Nothing in the prosecutor's statement remotely suggested that a verdict of guilt was a foregone conclusion. And, after voir dire, the jurors were well inured to the concept that the initial part of any capital case is called the guilt phase.