Opinion ID: 1359265
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Instruction on Factors in Aggravation and Mitigation

Text: The trial court read to the jury CALJIC No. 8.84.1, the standard instruction describing the factors in aggravation and mitigation that the jury may consider in determining penalty. [32] Defendants challenge this instruction in four different respects.
Defendants argue that the trial court should have omitted from the instruction factors (d) (mental or emotional disturbance), (e) (victim's participation in the homicide), (f) (moral justification for the crimes), (g) (duress), (h) (mental impairment), and (j) (defendant a minor participant in the crimes), because these factors were inapplicable to the facts of this case. Defendants concede, however, that we have repeatedly rejected this contention. (See, e.g., People v. Sims (1993) 5 Cal.4th 405, 465 [20 Cal. Rptr.2d 537, 853 P.2d 992]; People v. Miranda, supra, 44 Cal.3d 57, 104-105; People v. Ghent (1987) 43 Cal.3d 739, 776-777 [239 Cal. Rptr. 82, 739 P.2d 1250].) We see no reason to reconsider these decisions.
(32) Defendants point out that as part of the instruction describing the factors in aggravation and mitigation, the trial court told the jury that it could consider: (a) The circumstances of the crime of which the defendant was convicted in the present proceeding, and the existence of any special circumstances found to be true; [¶] (b) The presence or absence of criminal activity by the defendant which involved the use or attempted use of force or violence, or the express or implied threat to use force or violence; [¶] (c) The presence or absence of any prior felony conviction.... Defendants argue that this portion of the instruction improperly permitted the jury to double count the violent conduct that led to their convictions of burglary, robbery, and murder at the guilt phase of the trial, by considering their conduct both as circumstances of the crime (§ 190.3, factor (a)) and as criminal activity ... which involves the use ... of force or violence ( id., factor (b)). Similarly, they argue that the jury may have considered the special circumstances it had found to be true at the guilt phase of trial both as circumstances of the offense ( id., factor (a)) and as prior felony convictions ( id., factor (c)). In People v. Miranda, supra, 44 Cal.3d 57, we directed that henceforth the trial court should explain to the jury that the violent criminal conduct referred to in section 190.3, factor (b) and the prior felony convictions referred to in factor (c) do not include the evidence underlying the guilt determination. (44 Cal.3d at p. 106, fn. 28.) Because this case was tried before our decision in Miranda, the trial court gave no such explanation. But as we said in People v. Montiel, supra, 5 Cal.4th at page 938: [W]e have consistently found that the absence of a clarifying instruction on this issue is harmless. The same is true here. In his closing argument, the prosecutor did not suggest to the jury that it should double count the evidence introduced or the jury's findings at the guilt phase of trial; as a result, it is unlikely that the jury gave the evidence and findings duplicative consideration. Defendants complain that the instruction describing aggravating and mitigating circumstances was defective because the jury was not instructed that the fact that [defendants] had been convicted of first degree murder and the fact of the true findings on the special circumstances were not, in themselves, aggravating circumstances. They appear to contend that because the trial court did not give this instruction, the jury may have double counted the circumstances of their offenses by considering the convictions and special circumstances, and by separately considering the facts that led to the convictions and special circumstance findings. Such an instruction would only have confused the jury; therefore, the trial court acted properly in not giving it. Defendant Champion faults the trial court for not telling the jury that it could not consider his felonious assaults on Vincent Verkuilen and Jose Bustos both as violent criminal conduct (§ 190.3, factor (b)) and as a prior felony conviction ( id., factor (c)). We have held, however, that a penalty phase jury is entitled to consider such evidence under both factors. ( People v. Montiel, supra, 5 Cal.4th at p. 939, fn. 34; People v. Melton, supra, 44 Cal.3d at p. 764.)
(33) Defendants argue that the trial court's instruction to the jury describing the circumstances in aggravation and mitigation did not adequately inform the jury that it could consider the mitigating evidence presented at the penalty phase. As they point out, the United States Supreme Court has held that at the penalty phase of a capital case, the jury must be permitted to consider `any aspect of a defendant's character or record ... that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death.' ( Eddings v. Oklahoma (1982) 455 U.S. 104, 110 [71 L.Ed.2d 1, 8, 102 S.Ct. 869].) In this case, the trial court instructed the jury that it could consider: (k) Any other circumstance which extenuates the gravity of the crime, even though it is not a legal excuse for the crime. The United States Supreme Court has held that this instruction is not, in and of itself, constitutionally inadequate. ( Boyde v. California (1990) 494 U.S. 370 [108 L.Ed.2d 316, 110 S.Ct. 1190].) But in People v. Easley (1983) 34 Cal.3d 858 [196 Cal. Rptr. 309, 671 P.2d 813], decided after the trial in this case, we directed that trial courts should, to avoid confusion, instruct the jury that it may consider any other `aspect of [the] defendant's character or record ... that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death.' ( Id. at p. 878, fn. 10.) In cases that, like this one, were tried before our decision in Easley, we examine the record to determine whether, in context, the sentencer may have been misled to defendant's prejudice about the scope of its sentencing discretion.... ( People v. Brown (1985) 40 Cal.3d 512, 544, fn. 17 [220 Cal. Rptr. 637, 709 P.2d 440]; see also People v. Payton (1992) 3 Cal.4th 1050, 1071 [13 Cal. Rptr.2d 526, 839 P.2d 1035].) Having reviewed the record in this case, we see no reason to conclude that the jury was misled regarding the scope of its sentencing discretion. In his closing argument, the prosecutor never suggested that the jury could not consider the mitigating evidence. To the contrary, the prosecutor specifically informed the jury that it could consider any evidence of mitigation, not only surrounding the crime itself, but about [defendants'] lives in general. The prosecutor then discussed the evidence in mitigation offered by defendants, and argued, in essence, that this evidence was inadequate to outweigh the evidence in aggravation offered by the prosecution. We find no reasonable possibility that the jury was misled into believing that it could not consider defendants' mitigating evidence.
(34) The instruction describing the factors in aggravation and mitigation also told the jury that it could consider all of the evidence which has been received during any part of the trial. Defendants argue that this portion of the instruction was improper, because it permitted the jury to consider, in aggravation, guilt phase evidence that was unrelated to any of the aggravating factors set forth in section 190.3. Not so. The evidence introduced by the prosecution at the guilt phase of defendants' trial was relevant to prove defendants guilty of the murders charged in this case. So long as it considered the evidence offered at the guilt phase of trial solely for this purpose, the jury was entitled to take into account all of the evidence offered at the guilt phase as part of the circumstances of the crime, an aggravating factor that the jury may consider in its penalty deliberations. (§ 190.3, factor (a).) Therefore, the trial court did not err when it instructed the jury that it could consider guilt phase evidence in its penalty deliberations. True, the jury might also have considered some of the evidence the prosecution introduced at the guilt phase of trial (e.g., evidence that defendants were gang members for many years, that they used profanities and racial slurs in their conversation, and that their nicknames were Evil and Treacherous) as evidence of bad character, and thus as aggravating evidence of a type not statutorily authorized. If defendants had requested the trial court to instruct the jury that it could consider this evidence only for the light it shed on defendants' guilt, such an instruction would perhaps have been appropriate. Defendants, however, did not request such an instruction, and the trial court was not obligated to give such an instruction on its own initiative. ( People v. McLain, supra, 46 Cal.3d 97, 113.)