Opinion ID: 2359622
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Failure to Give Defendant's Instruction on Scope of Sentencing Discretion

Text: (1) Defendant contends that the trial court committed reversible error by failing to instruct the jury, as defendant requested, that it had the discretion to impose life without the possibility of parole even if the factors in aggravation outweighed the factors in mitigation. [3] He maintains that this requested instruction was required by California law and the previous decisions in this case, because it is clear that [his] jury had the discretion to reject the death penalty even if it found that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors. We conclude that the trial court correctly refused to give the instruction. (2) As we noted in Murtishaw II, when defendant committed his crimes the death penalty statute passed by the Legislature in 1977 (the 1977 law) was still in effect. (Stats. 1977, ch. 316, §§ 1-26, pp. 1255-1266.) The Briggs death penalty initiative (the 1978 law) became effective thereafter, on November 8, 1978. ( Murtishaw II, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 1025.) As relevant here, the 1977 law, after enumerating 10 sentencing factors, directed that the trier of fact shall consider, take into account and be guided by the aggravating and mitigating circumstances ... (former § 190.3, added by Stats. 1977, ch. 316, § 11, p. 1258), while the 1978 law adds, after this language, the directive that the finder of fact shall impose a sentence of death if the trier of fact concludes that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances. (§ 190.3.) In Murtishaw II, we held that it was error for the trial court in the first penalty phase retrial to have given instructions modeled on the 1978 law rather than the applicable 1977 law, but we found the error harmless. ( Murtishaw II, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 1025.) In Murtishaw III, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the death judgment and remanded for retrial. The Ninth Circuit concluded that giving the jury instructions based on the bare language of the 1978 statute violated the ex post facto provisions of the United States Constitution because [u]nder the 1977 statute the jury would have had discretion to reject the death penalty even if it found that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors. However, under the bare language of the 1978 statute the jury did not have this discretion. Indeed, under the plain language of the 1978 statute, if aggravating circumstances even slightly outweighed mitigating circumstances, death was mandatory. ( Murtishaw III, supra, 255 F.3d at p. 961.) At the current penalty phase retrial, the parties and the court agreed that the jury had to be instructed with the language of the 1977 law. The jury was thus instructed that: In determining which penalty is to be imposed on the defendant you shall consider all of the evidence which has been received during the trial of this case. You shall consider, take into account and be guided by the following factors, if applicable .... There followed 10 enumerated factors in aggravation and mitigation. Defendant, however, requested that the court give an additional instruction pointing out that even if the factors in aggravation outweigh mitigation, the jury can still vote for life. The trial court declined to do so. The trial court observed that it was the use of the 1978 weighing instruction that had led the Ninth Circuit to reverse the death sentencespecifically the language in the instruction that if you conclude that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances, you shall impose the sentence of death. The court said: And that was the problem. And that is not the instruction as it was given under the 1977 statute.... [I]t says simply, you shall consider, take into account and be guided by the following factors .... And it doesn't give them any direction how they should use their good judgment. Defense counsel responded that, under the 1977 law, even if ... the factors in aggravation outweighed mitigation, [the jury] still had the discretion to vote for life or for death. The trial court agreed but said, There's nothing that they are going to be told that would guide them in any other direction. Therefore, the court declined to give the requested instruction. The trial court was correct. The concept of weighing factors in aggravation and mitigation was not part of the 1977 law under which defendant was tried, and any reference to that process in this case would have been inappropriate. For that reason, we rejected an argument similar to the defendant's in People v. Ledesma (2006) 39 Cal.4th 641 [47 Cal.Rptr.3d 326, 140 P.3d 657] ( Ledesma ). In Ledesma, we found no merit in the defendant's claim that the trial court erroneously denied instructions proposed by the defense that would have required the jury to `weigh' aggravating and mitigating factors. [Citation.] The 1977 death penalty law under which defendant was tried did not require specifically that the jury weigh aggravating factors, and the jury was instructed, in accordance with that statute, to `consider, take into account and be guided by' the aggravating and mitigating circumstances. [Citation.] Furthermore, we have noted that `there may well be no significant difference between' the 1977 law's requirement that the jury `consider' the aggravating and mitigating factors and the 1978 law's requirement that the jury weigh these factors. [Citations.] Because the jury was not instructed to weigh aggravating and mitigating factors, defendant's further request for an instruction that the jury could return a verdict of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole even if the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors was irrelevant and unnecessary. ( Ledesma, supra, 39 Cal.4th at pp. 738-739.) As in Ledesma, the jury in this case was correctly instructed under the 1977 law, which contained no weighing language. Defendant's instruction, by introducing the concept of weighing, would have been, at best, anachronistic, since that concept was not part of the 1977 law, and, at worst, confusing. It would also have been unnecessary since the process by which the jury determines the penalty under either version of the law is the same. That is, the language used in the 1977 law requiring the jury to consider the relevant factors is essentially the same as the 1978 law's directive to weigh the relevant factors in determining the appropriate penalty. As we explained in Murtishaw II, the 1978 law, `should not be understood to require any juror to vote for the death penalty unless, upon completion of the weighing process, he decides that death is the appropriate penalty under all the circumstances. ...' [Citation.] [¶] A 1978-law jury may not approach this task arbitrarily or mechanically. Rather, each juror must assign `whatever moral or sympathetic value he deems appropriate' to the relevant sentencing factors, singly and in combination. He must believe aggravation is so relatively great, and mitigation so comparatively minor, that the defendant deserves death rather than society's next most serious punishment, life in prison without parole. [Citation.] [¶] This analysis leaves a 1978-law sentencer with the same range of potential mitigating evidence and the same broad power of leniency and mercy afforded a 1977-law jury. ( Murtishaw II, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 1027.) Defendant apparently believes that the language of the 1977-law instruction given in this casethat the jury consider, take into account and be guided by the enumerated factorsis less concrete than a jury instruction containing weighing language. Therefore, he asserts, since the process is essentially the same under either version of the statute, the trial court should have given his requested instruction with the weighing language. (3) His argument fails. First, defendant's weighing language appears to describe the kind of mechanical process that we have held is not intended by that language. [T]he word `weighing' is a metaphor for a process which by nature is incapable of precise description. The word connotes a mental balancing process, but certainly not one which calls for a mere mechanical counting of factors on each side of the imaginary `scale,' or the arbitrary assignment of `weights' to any of them. ( People v. Brown (1985) 40 Cal.3d 512, 541 [230 Cal.Rptr. 834, 726 P.2d 516].) Indeed, the current instruction on the weighing process for purposes of the 1978 law elaborately explains that process precisely so as to preclude the mechanical counting of factors as a basis for the jury's decision. (CALCRIM No. 766.) [4] Second, while we have construed the process by which the jury exercises its discretion to be essentially the same under either the 1977 or 1978 statute, the fact remains that each version describes that process in different languageconsider (1977) versus weigh (1978). That difference must be respected. Instructions under each statute must be couched in the language of the statute that applies, lest the jury potentially be confused or misled. Indeed, it was the potential for confusion that led us to agree with defendant in Murtishaw II that it was technically erroralbeit harmlessto instruct the jury at his first penalty phase trial in the language of the 1978 law. ( Murtishaw II, supra, 48 Cal.3d at pp. 1028-1031.) Had the trial court in the present proceeding given defendant's requested instruction, it would potentially have committed the same error. (4) In his reply brief, defendant, for the first time, argues the instruction was required under law of the case principles based on our decision in Murtishaw II. `The doctrine of the law of the case is this: That where, upon an appeal, the [reviewing] court, in deciding the appeal, states in its opinion a principle or rule of law necessary to the decision, that principle or rule becomes the law of the case and must be adhered to throughout its subsequent progress, both in the lower court and upon subsequent appeal and ... in any subsequent suit for the same cause of action, and this [is true] although in its subsequent consideration this court may be clearly of the opinion that the former decision is erroneous in that particular.' ( People v. Shuey (1975) 13 Cal.3d 835, 841 [120 Cal.Rptr. 83, 533 P.2d 211], quoting Tally v. Ganahl (1907) 151 Cal. 418, 421 [90 P. 1049].) Defendant's law of the case argument is predicated upon our discussion in Murtishaw II in which we concluded that the scope of the jury's discretion was essentially the same under the 1977 and 1978 death penalty statutes. ( Murtishaw II, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 1026.) Defendant asserts that this conclusion required the trial court to give his weighing instruction in this case. The issue before us in Murtishaw II was the error in giving 1978-law instructions in a case governed by the 1977 law. Defendant's construction of Murtishaw II turns that decision on its head insofar as he now attempts to read our decision to require the very thing that we determined was error importing 1978-law instructions into a case involving the 1977 statute. The law of the case doctrine has no application here.