Opinion ID: 2518586
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Effect of Separate Penalty Verdicts for Each Murder Victim

Text: Defendant contends that the trial court committed reversible error in allowing the prosecutor to seek separate penalty verdicts for each of the two murder victims, Ferguson and Perez, and that retrial of the penalty phase as to the Perez count undermined the reliability of the death verdict and violated the state and federal constitutional prohibitions against double jeopardy. A brief procedural recitation will place this claim in perspective. Before the start of the first trial, defendant unsuccessfully moved to strike one of the two multiplemurder special-circumstance allegations (the only such allegations against defendant), citing People v. Harris, supra, 36 Cal.3d at page 67, 201 Cal.Rptr. 782, 679 P.2d 433, which held that only one such special circumstance is properly alleged when multiple murders are charged; he also asked that the jury be directed to render only one penalty verdict, asserting that two penalty verdicts would, in effect, punish him twice for one capital offense, in violation of the state and federal Constitutions. During the guilt phase jury instruction conference, defendant reiterated his argument that only one multiple-murder special-circumstance allegation was proper, and he unsuccessfully objected to the court's giving the jury two special circumstance verdict forms. During the penalty phase jury instruction conference, defendant unsuccessfully renewed his objection to giving the jury penalty verdict forms for each murder conviction. After the trial court declared a mistrial when the jury was unable to reach a verdict as to the penalty for the Perez murder conviction, defendant entered a plea of once in jeopardy and unsuccessfully moved to bar retrial on the ground that relitigation of the issue of penalty would violate the doctrine of collateral estoppel. Defendant then sought a writ of prohibition in the Court of Appeal, claiming that a penalty retrial was barred by the federal and state Constitutions because the trial court had erred in allowing multiple special circumstances and multiple penalty verdicts. The Court of Appeal denied the writ, and this court denied review. Although he acknowledges we previously have approved the use of multiple penalty verdicts in cases involving only the multiple-murder special circumstance (see, e.g., People v. Sandoval (1992) 4 Cal.4th 155, 197, 14 Cal.Rptr.2d 342, 841 P.2d 862), defendant first contends that because he could be given only a single sentence of either life without parole or death for a single multiple-murder capital offense, only one verdict was proper in his case. Defendant's premise is faulty: His two murder convictions constituted two capital offenses, not one, regardless of the circumstance that only one multiple-murder special-circumstance finding may be had. Contrary to defendant's argument, Williams v. Superior Court (1984) 36 Cal.3d 441, 204 Cal.Rptr. 700, 683 P.2d 699 does not hold otherwise. In that case, the defendant contended the trial court erred in denying severance of two murder charges, and this court, on a petition for writ of mandate, held the possibility of prejudice inherent in joinder of the charges warranted severance. Defendant relies on our comment in Williams that since one of the charged offenses is a capital offense, we had to analyze the severance issue with a greater degree of scrutiny than is normally applicable in a noncapital case. (Id. at p. 454, 204 Cal. Rptr. 700, 683 P.2d 699.) Defendant reads too much into the comment, which appears simply to have been an allusion to one of the factors courts consider in analyzing severance claims (see id. at p. 452, 204 Cal.Rptr. 700, 683 P.2d 699), but in any event cannot reasonably be interpreted as signifying that two charged murders together constitute one capital murder for which only one death verdict may be had. Nor is this court's disapproval in People v. Harris, supra, 36 Cal.3d at page 67, 201 Cal.Rptr. 782, 679 P.2d 433, of the practice of alleging two multiple-murder special-circumstances in a double murder case (on the basis that doing so would improperly inflate[] the risk that the jury will arbitrarily impose the death penalty) inconsistent with permitting separate penalty verdicts for each of, the murders. The language of section 190.2 further supports the use of separate verdicts in this situation: The statute provides that the multiplemurder special circumstance applies to multiple murders, even if one is only in the second degree, yet the death penalty can be imposed only for a first degree murder conviction. Thus, the two murders do not merge into one capital crime, as defendant seems to argue. In sum, defendant's argument lacks merit. Because we reject defendant's premise that his two murder convictions together constituted but one capital crime, it follows the retrial of the penalty phase for the Perez murder conviction, after the first jury was unable to reach a verdict, did not violate principles of double jeopardy under either the state or the federal Constitution. Defendant's additional contention, that the penalty retrial violated the doctrine of collateral estoppel because the first jury's determination that life imprisonment was the appropriate verdict, likewise lacks merit because the first jury did not reach a determination as to the penalty for the Perez murder conviction.