Opinion ID: 1399120
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Prosecutor's Use of Chart During Penalty Phase Argument

Text: (44) Citing People v. Brown (1985) 40 Cal.3d 512 [220 Cal. Rptr. 637, 709 P.2d 440], defendant contends his constitutional rights were violated by the prosecutor's use of a chart during penalty phase closing argument. [25] The chart graphically set forth the various statutory categories of murder, with a line separating those for which the death penalty is legally unavailable from those for which it is legally available, and listed aggravating and mitigating factors. The prosecutor drew a second line through the section of the chart depicting first degree murders with special circumstances, to separate cases in which he argued the death penalty would be appropriate from those in which it would be legally available but inappropriate. The prosecutor argued that the jury's function was to consider the circumstances of the Urell crime, the other-crimes evidence adduced at the penalty phase if it believed such evidence proved defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and the defendant's background. From all of that information, the prosecutor stated, the jury was to decide the appropriate penalty. Defendant complains that the very use of a chart implied that scales and lines should be used in determining penalty, and that the process is one of numerical computation rather than evaluation and judgment. We disagree. Taking the argument as a whole, we find it readily apparent that the prosecutor took care to avoid any such mechanistic approaches to the sentencing decision. Over and over, he spoke of the necessity of considering all relevant factors. Repeatedly he emphasized the individual, subjective nature of the penalty determination. Defendant isolates the prosecutor's exhortation to subtract out the mitigating from the aggravating and see where you end up on this chart, claiming the jury must have been misled. The language he cites, however, was immediately followed by reference to the standard embodied in section 190.3 (And if you find that the aggravating factors substantially outweigh the mitigating factors, then you may impose the death penalty.) and by a reminder that the law does not mandate the imposition of death (But again, even that's discretionary. You don't have to.). The prosecutor's argument was not erroneous under People v. Brown, supra, 40 Cal.3d 512, or any other decision cited to us.