Opinion ID: 1196295
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Sympathy for Victims and Their Families; Use of Victims' Pictures in Life

Text: (49) Defendant also alleges the prosecutor's argument regarding jury sympathy for the victims and their families and his reference to pictures of the victims in life contravened the restrictions imposed by Booth v. Maryland, supra, 482 U.S. 496, and South Carolina v. Gathers (1989) 490 U.S. 805 [104 L.Ed.2d 876, 109 S.Ct. 2207]. In Booth, the Supreme Court condemned the use of a victim impact statement, describing the effect of the murders on family members, in light of the potential for improperly diverting the jury's attention from the circumstances of the crime itself and the character and background of the defendant. ( Booth v. Maryland, supra, 482 U.S. at pp. 504-505 [96 L.Ed.2d at pp. 449-450].) In Gathers, the court relied on Booth in finding fault with the prosecutor's references in argument to personal qualities of the victim that did not relate to the circumstances of the crime and of which the defendant could not have been aware at the time. ( South Carolina v. Gathers, supra, 490 U.S. at pp. 810-812 [104 L.Ed.2d at pp. 882-883].) The principle underlying Booth and Gathers appertains to the danger of interjecting into the sentencing determination consideration of the character and reputation of the victim and the effect [of the crime] on his family, matters wholly unrelated to the blameworthiness of a particular defendant. ( Booth v. Maryland, supra, 482 U.S. at p. 504 [96 L.Ed.2d at p. 449].) In this regard, the Supreme Court noted with approval the following observation of our own Court of Appeal: `We think it obvious that a defendant's level of culpability depends not on fortuitous circumstances such as the composition of his victim's family, but on circumstances over which he has control. A defendant may choose, or decline, to premeditate, to act callously, to attack a vulnerable victim, to commit a crime while on probation, or to amass a record of offenses.... In contrast, the fact that a victim's family is irredeemably bereaved can be attributable to no act of will of the defendant other than his commission of the homicide in the first place....' [Citation.] ( Id., at p. 504, fn. 7 [96 L.Ed.2d at pp. 449-450], quoting People v. Levitt (1984) 156 Cal. App.3d 500, 516-517.) The remarks cited by defendant do not raise any of the foregoing concerns. Most importantly, the jury heard neither evidence nor argument describing the personal qualities of the victims or the impact on their families. Rather, the prosecutor's comments focused on specific aggravating or mitigating factors, offering the jury his estimation of their relative significance. For example, the record does not reflect an appeal to sympathy for the victims from the Alexander family. These references arose in the broader context of whether the pleas of defendant's family should evoke sufficient overriding sympathy to warrant sparing his life. The prosecutor essentially sought to balance the jury's perspective, which does not generally constitute Booth error. (See People v. Burton, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 869; see also Booth v. Maryland, supra, 482 U.S. at p. 507, fn. 10 [96 L.Ed.2d at p. 451].) Most of the other remarks related in some manner to the circumstances of the crime, referring broadly to the vulnerability of the victims and the brutality of their deaths. To that extent they were not inappropriate (see Booth v. Maryland, supra, 482 U.S. at p. 507, fn. 10 [96 L.Ed.2d at p. 451]); nor could they have impaired the jury's objectivity or impermissibly diverted its attention from weighing the statutory factors as instructed. (See People v. Morales (1989) 48 Cal.3d 527, 571-572 [257 Cal. Rptr. 64, 770 P.2d 244].) The prosecutor also argued that the victims would have wanted another month or day to live and that Ebora Alexander's murder was her reward for a long life of tribulation and good work. These observations were in response to the defense argument that an estimated 55 years in prison without possibility of parole was sufficient punishment: The prosecutor simply asked that the jury not forget the victims and that the jurors consider the lives they might have had. This argument is permissible at the penalty phase. [Citation.] ( People v. Williams, supra, 44 Cal.3d at p. 967.) In his closing remarks, the prosecutor briefly directed the jury's attention to the photographs of the victims in life. Although the use of these pictures at the guilt phase was unnecessary and therefore improper ( ante, III.C.), at the penalty phase different considerations obtain. (See People v. Hovey, supra, 44 Cal.3d at p. 576.) This evidence visually depicted a circumstance of the crimes, portraying the victims as defendant saw them seconds before he killed them. (See also People v. Carrera, supra, 49 Cal.3d at pp. 336-337.) The photographs graphically illustrated that, irrespective of any personal qualities unknowable to him, defendant must have been well aware he chose to murder an elderly woman and two young boys as well as a defenseless younger woman. ( People v. Frank (1990) 51 Cal.3d 718, 734 [274 Cal. Rptr. 372, 798 P.2d 1215]; see Booth v. Maryland, supra, 482 U.S. at p. 507, fn. 10 [96 L.Ed.2d at p. 451]; see also People v. Lewis, supra, 50 Cal.3d at pp. 283-284 [appropriate to invite jurors to put themselves in the shoes of the victim].) The prosecutor did not utilize the photographs to support some abstract emotional appeal but to illustrate the victims' vulnerability as a relevant consideration in evaluating the egregiousness of the offenses. Accordingly, we reject defendant's claim of impropriety.