Opinion ID: 2387024
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Rejection of various instructions requested by defendant

Text: (24) Defendant assigns as error the trial court's rejection of three jury instructions proposed by the defense. First, he contends the jury should have been instructed that the special circumstances of burglary-murder and robbery-murder should not be double-counted as factors in aggravation, because they arose from a single incident. As he acknowledges, we rejected this contention in People v. Pollock (2004) 32 Cal.4th 1153, 1195-1196 [13 Cal.Rptr.3d 34, 89 P.3d 353]. As in Pollock, the jury in the present case was instructed that [t]he weighing of aggravating and mitigating circumstances does not mean a mere mechanical counting of factors on each side of an imaginary scale, or the arbitrary assignment of weights to any of them. He presents no reason to depart from our conclusion that [t]here is no reasonable likelihood that a jury so instructed would be unduly influenced by the mere number of special circumstances, without regard to the character or quality of the conduct on which they were based. Accordingly, defendant's claim is lacking in merit. ( Id. at p. 1196.) Second, defendant contends the jury should have been instructed that [a] single mitigating factor is sufficient to support a decision that death is not the appropriate punishment. Instead, the court instructed that [a]ny of the mitigating factors, standing alone, may support a decision that death is not the appropriate punishment in this case. [¶] A single mitigating factor, which you determine to be of sufficient weight, in relation to the aggravating factors, can support a decision that death is not the appropriate punishment. He asserts that the court's instruction precluded the jury from being able to give whatever effect it wanted to the mitigating factor, and that it is likely that one or more jurors did not realize that a single mitigating factor could outweigh all the aggravating evidence. We rejected a substantially similar contention in People v. Lenart (2004) 32 Cal.4th 1107 [12 Cal.Rptr.3d 592, 88 P.3d 498], noting that [t]he [proposed] instruction is argumentative because it states that any mitigating evidence may support a sentence of life without possibility of parole, but it does not state that any aggravating evidence may support a death sentence. ( Id. at p. 1134.) In addition, as in Lenart, because the jury was instructed with CALJIC No. 8.88 that it was not merely to balance the number of aggravating circumstances against the number of mitigating circumstances, and advised that it was to choose what weight to assign to any factor, it received an evenhanded framed instruction that addressed defendant's concern. ( Id. at 1134-1135.) (25) Third, defendant contends the trial court erred in declining to instruct that [a]n unintentional or accidental killing, even though criminal, may be considered to be a mitigating factor in the penalty phase of the case. An intentional killing may be considered to be an aggravating factor in the penalty phase of the case. In support of this claim, he cites Tennard v. Dretke (2004) 542 U.S. 274 [159 L.Ed.2d 384, 124 S.Ct. 2562], in which the jury was instructed to resolve two issues in deciding the appropriate punishment whether the defendant's criminal conduct was deliberate, and whether there was a probability that the defendant would present a continuing threat to society. In light of the narrow issues presented in that case, the prosecutor argued that the defendant's low IQ was not relevant to the jury's penalty deliberations. The high court rejected the lower courts' narrow view of the relevant issues and evidence, reiterating that `[r]elevant mitigating evidence is evidence which tends logically to prove or disprove some fact or circumstance which a fact-finder could reasonably deem to have mitigating value.' [Citation.] Thus, a State cannot bar `the consideration of ... evidence if the sentencer could reasonably find that it warrants a sentence less than death.' [Citation.] ( Tennard v. Dretke, supra, 542 U.S. at pp. 284-285.) Based upon this authority, defendant asserts a jury could well have considered that the fact the killing was accidental had some mitigating value, but it was precluded from considering this evidence because of the trial court's refusal to instruct. The trial court's instructions did not preclude the jury from considering evidence relating to the circumstances of the homicide. The court's instructions stated that [i]n the guilt phase of the trial, you were instructed that, in the context of the felony murder rule, if a killing occurred in the course of a statutory felony, it did not matter whether the killing was intentional, unintentional or accidental, it still constituted first degree murder. [¶] For the penalty phase under Factor `A' how the killing occurred may be considered for the purpose of determining whether the circumstances of the crime constitutes an aggravating or mitigating factor. [¶] Your assessment as to the nature of the act that resulted in the killing of [Timothy McVeigh] may be considered, along with all the other circumstances attending your determination of first degree murder and the finding the special circumstances are true. (Italics added.) Thus, the instructions expressly informed the jury that although it could not consider at the guilt phase whether the killing was intentional or accidental, it could consider at the penalty phase how the killing occurred and the circumstances of the crime in weighing the appropriate penalty. This instruction clearly encompassed the substance of defendant's proposed instruction. In addition, the trial court's instruction properly conveyed that the circumstances of the homicide could be considered as aggravating or mitigating. In contrast, defendant's proposed instruction was argumentative in stating only that the circumstances could be considered as mitigating evidence, without noting that they also could be considered as aggravating evidence.