Opinion ID: 1359265
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Jury's Consideration of Guilt Phase Evidence

Text: (34) The instruction describing the factors in aggravation and mitigation also told the jury that it could consider all of the evidence which has been received during any part of the trial. Defendants argue that this portion of the instruction was improper, because it permitted the jury to consider, in aggravation, guilt phase evidence that was unrelated to any of the aggravating factors set forth in section 190.3. Not so. The evidence introduced by the prosecution at the guilt phase of defendants' trial was relevant to prove defendants guilty of the murders charged in this case. So long as it considered the evidence offered at the guilt phase of trial solely for this purpose, the jury was entitled to take into account all of the evidence offered at the guilt phase as part of the circumstances of the crime, an aggravating factor that the jury may consider in its penalty deliberations. (§ 190.3, factor (a).) Therefore, the trial court did not err when it instructed the jury that it could consider guilt phase evidence in its penalty deliberations. True, the jury might also have considered some of the evidence the prosecution introduced at the guilt phase of trial (e.g., evidence that defendants were gang members for many years, that they used profanities and racial slurs in their conversation, and that their nicknames were Evil and Treacherous) as evidence of bad character, and thus as aggravating evidence of a type not statutorily authorized. If defendants had requested the trial court to instruct the jury that it could consider this evidence only for the light it shed on defendants' guilt, such an instruction would perhaps have been appropriate. Defendants, however, did not request such an instruction, and the trial court was not obligated to give such an instruction on its own initiative. ( People v. McLain, supra, 46 Cal.3d 97, 113.)