Opinion ID: 2623595
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 23

Heading: Disproportionality of the Death Penalty as to Coffman

Text: Invoking her right to intracase proportionality review ( People v. Mincey, supra, 2 Cal.4th at p. 476, 6 Cal.Rptr.2d 822, 827 P.2d 388; see People v. Dillon (1983) 34 Cal.3d 441, 450, 194 Cal.Rptr. 390, 668 P.2d 697), Coffman contends the death sentence is disproportionate to her personal culpability and thus violates the Eighth Amendment to the federal Constitution and its state analogue, California Constitution, article I, section 17. [46] We disagree. Unlike the psychologically immature 17-year-old defendant in Dillon, who fatally shot the victim in a panic during an attempted raid on the victim's illicit marijuana field, Coffman, 24 years old at the time of the offenses, was found by the jury to have committed murder and to have engaged in the charged felonies with the intent to kill or to aid or abet Marlow in killing the victim. The jury also heard evidence that Coffman, together with Marlow, had committed another similar murder and other felony offenses in Orange County. Evidently the jury was not persuaded that Coffman suffered from such physical abuse or emotional or psychological oppression as to warrant a sentence less than death. Contrary to Coffman's argument, the offenses here were of the most serious nature, and her sentence clearly befits her personal culpability.