Opinion ID: 1180863
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Instruct on the Result of a Hung Jury

Text: (84) Defendant asserts, without case support or argument, that the court erred in refusing to instruct at the start of penalty deliberations that defendant would be sentenced to life without possibility of parole if the jury could not reach a verdict. We have rejected this contention in the past, most recently in Miranda, supra, 44 Cal.3d at page 105. In our view, such an instruction would have diminished the jurors' sense of duty to deliberate, and to be open to the ideas of fellow jurors. The effect of a hung jury is irrelevant to the jury's deliberation of any issue before it. (See People v. Kimble (1988) 44 Cal.3d 480, 511-516 [244 Cal. Rptr. 148, 749 P.2d 803] [failure to instruct pursuant to 1977 law on consequences of deadlock in response to jury question not error].) The court properly refused the requested instruction.