Opinion ID: 2585503
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Failure to Instruct the Jury Following Substitution of Jurors at the Penalty Phase

Text: Before the start of the penalty phase of trial, Alternate Juror Robin R. replaced Juror Victoria H. due to medical reasons. Then, during the presentation of penalty phase evidence but before jury deliberations had begun, Alternate Juror Herbert S. replaced Juror Cheryl K. due to a death in her family. Defendant contends his rights under the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, as well as analogous provisions of the California Constitution, were violated by the trial court's failure to instruct the jury sua sponte that the jurors review together the guilt phase evidence in order to discuss any lingering doubt the two new jurors may have had. We disagree. The excusal of a juror for good cause and the substitution of an alternate at the penalty phase prior to commencement of deliberations do not require a retrial of the guilt phase or a reweighing of the evidence received at the earlier phase of the proceedings. ( People v. Cunningham (2001) 25 Cal.4th 926, 1030, 108 Cal.Rptr.2d 291, 25 P.3d 519, italics added; People v. Brown (1988) 46 Cal.3d 432, 460-461, 250 Cal.Rptr. 604, 758 P.2d 1135.) Inasmuch as the two new jurors were substituted into the jury before deliberations, no such instruction was required. To the extent defendant contends the trial court erred by failing to instruct the jury sua sponte on lingering doubt as a result of the two new jurors, we reject that claim as well. ( Cunningham, supra, at p. 1030, 108 Cal.Rptr.2d 291, 25 P.3d 519.)