Opinion ID: 1172016
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 18

Heading: Consideration of Uncharged Crimes

Text: (21) Defendant asserts the court erred in failing to instruct sua sponte that evidence of prior crimes of which defendant was not convicted must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt before the jury may consider them as aggravating factors. (See People v. Robertson (1982) 33 Cal.3d 21, 53-55 [188 Cal. Rptr. 77, 655 P.2d 279].) The jury was informed that defendant had suffered two prior felony convictions: one in 1972 for grand theft, and one in 1980 for manufacturing drugs and for being a felon in possession of a firearm. Evidence was admitted to show the circumstances of defendant's arrest for the 1980 charges. One of the arresting officers testified that at the time of defendant's arrest for attempt to manufacture methamphetamine and possession of machine guns, he pointed a pistol at defendant and ordered him to freeze. The officer was a few feet outside the building which housed the drug lab; defendant was inside the building, standing near a window. Upon seeing the officer and hearing the command to freeze, defendant calmly stepped back from the window, lit a flare, and threw it into the lab, blowing it up. Defendant suggests that, in addition to the crimes of which he was convicted, the evidence outlined above may have been improperly considered by the jury as showing the crimes of malicious mischief, arson or the destruction of property. We find this contention unconvincing. At no time did the prosecution argue to the jury that it should consider damage to the building during its penalty deliberations. Indeed, a review of the record reveals that the property damage caused by defendant was largely irrelevant to the argument and consideration of the death penalty. The evidence was introduced solely to demonstrate to the jury that defendant was able to react calmly when faced with a pistol and a command not to move. As previously discussed, the thrust of the prosecution's penalty phase closing argument was that the circumstances of Kevin's murder constituted the only relevant aggravating factor. Rather than emphasize defendant's prior felony convictions, the prosecutor disclaimed the idea that they would justify a death sentence. And while the court instructed the jury that it could consider defendant's prior convictions, defendant was not convicted of malicious mischief, arson or the destruction of property, and at no time did the prosecution argue that defendant should be sentenced to death because he set fire to a building.