Opinion ID: 2599164
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Instruction on Considering Aggravating Factors

Text: The trial court instructed the jury on the 11 statutory factors it should consider in making its penalty determination. (§ 190.3, factors (a)-(k).) Defendant originally requested the trial court also to instruct the jury that factors (a) through (c), and (i) which I have just listed are the only factors that can be considered by you as aggravating factors. When the court and parties discussed the instructions, however, defense counsel stated that based upon a case entitled [ People v. Gordon (1990) 50 Cal.3d 1223, 1275, footnote 14, 270 Cal.Rptr. 451, 792 P.2d 251], if the Court intends to give this instruction in any respect, the first sentence we'd request be modified to say `the factors A through J' and delete `and I' because that's what the Gordon case says. The court agreed. Accordingly, it instructed the jury, The factors A through J which I have just listed are the only factors that can be considered by you as aggravating factors, and you cannot take into account any other facts or circumstances as a basis for imposing the penalty of death on the defendant. [¶] If you find any of those factors to be aggravating and to have been established by the evidence, you may consider them in deciding the penalty you will impose in this case. [¶] Although a number of possible mitigating factors have been listed, you cannot consider the absence of any such factors in this case as an aggravating factor. Aggravating factors are limited to those which have been listed for you in these instructions. Defendant contends this latter instruction erroneously allowed the jury to consider as aggravating factors sentencing factors which, as a matter of state law, were relevant solely as mitigators. The Attorney General responds that any error was invited. (See People v. Wader (1993) 5 Cal.4th 610, 657-658, 20 Cal.Rptr.2d 788, 854 P.2d 80.) We disagree. Defendant clearly preferred the more limited instruction he originally requested. However, in People v. Gordon, supra, 50 Cal.3d at page 1275, footnote 14, 270 Cal.Rptr. 451, 792 P.2d 251, we said, Of course, on request a court must give an instruction stating that the jury may consider only penalty factors (a) through (j). and evidence relevant thereto, in determining aggravation. Defendant did not invite any error; he merely acquiesced in our opinion. (See People v. Lucero (2000) 23 Cal.4th 692, 723-724, 97 Cal.Rptr.2d 871, 3 P.3d 248.) On the merits, we find no error. Defendant is correct that [a] majority of the 11 statutory factors can only be mitigating. (See, e.g., People v. Gallego (1990) 52 Cal.3d 115, 200, 276 Cal.Rptr. 679, 802 P.2d 169 [§ 190.3, factors (e), (f), (g) and (j)]; People v. Whitt (1990) 51 Cal.3d 620, 654, 274 Cal.Rptr. 252, 798 P.2d 849 [§ 190.3, factors (d), (e), (f), (h) and (k)]; but see People v. Proctor (1992) 4 Cal.4th 499, 553, 15 Cal.Rptr.2d 340, 842 P.2d 1100 [whether § 190.3, factor (j) can only be mitigating is undecided].) ( People v. Wader, supra, 5 Cal.4th at p. 657, 20 Cal. Rptr.2d 788, 854 P.2d 80.) But the court's instruction was not to the contrary. It merely limited the jury's consideration of aggravation to the statutory factors. In accordance with our holding in People v. Boyd (1985) 38 Cal.3d 762, 772-776, 215 Cal.Rptr. 1, 700 P.2d 782, the court told the jury it could not consider in aggravation anything other than the statutory factors. It did not additionally tell the jury that all of the factors could be aggravating. Indeed, it said it had listed a number of possible mitigating factors, and the jury cannot consider the absence of any such factors in this case as an aggravating factor. Thus, the jury understood from the instruction that it could not consider in aggravation anything but the statutory factors. The reverse, however, does not follow. The jury could not reasonably have understood the court to tell it that all of the factors could be aggravating. For example, it would be absurd for the jury to have supposed it could consider as aggravating that the defendant reasonably believed [the circumstances of the crime] to be a moral justification or extenuation for his conduct. (§ 190.3, factor (f).) The court did not define which of the statutory factors could be aggravating and which were only mitigating. It did not need to. The aggravating or mitigating nature of the factors is self-evident within the context of each case. ( People v. Musselwhite (1998) 17 Cal.4th 1216, 1268, 74 Cal.Rptr.2d 212, 954 P.2d 475.) The trial court, being under no obligation to instruct the jury that factors (d) through (h) of section 190.3 could only be considered in mitigation of sentence, did not err in declining to do so. ( Ibid. ) In People v. Wader, supra, 5 Cal.4th at page 657, 20 Cal.Rptr.2d 788, 854 P.2d 80, we found error, albeit invited, in instructing the jury that the 11 statutory factors may be considered by you, if applicable, as either aggravating factors or mitigating factors. That instructiontelling the jury it may consider any of the statutory factors as aggravatingwas quite different from the one herewhich merely told the jury the statutory factors were the only ones it could consider in aggravation. Moreover, even if the instructions could be considered ambiguous in this regard, [6] we see nothing in the record suggesting the jury was misled into believing it could consider as aggravating a factor that can only mitigate. The main force of defendant's contrary argument, based primarily on the prosecutor's argument to the jury, is that the jury may have erroneously considered as aggravating the evidence he presented of section 190.3, factors (d) (mental or emotional disturbance) and (h) (the capacity of the defendant to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was impaired as a result of mental disease or defect, or the effects of intoxication). We disagree. In her opening argument to the jury, the prosecutor discussed the statutory factors one by one. She argued the jury should give factor (d) a big 0. Thus, she argued it was a nonfactor, not an aggravating factor. Similarly, in discussing factor (h), her entire thrust was to minimize this factor, not to use it in aggravation. Defendant interprets the prosecutor's argument differently. He notes that at the outset, she argued that he was simply too dangerous to live. Argument of dangerousness is proper when based, as here, on the defendant's past conduct. ( People v. Ray, supra, 13 Cal.4th at pp. 352-353, 52 Cal.Rptr.2d 296, 914 P.2d 846.) The prosecutor did not suggest that the evidence defendant presented of his mental state was itself aggravating. As defendant notes, the prosecutor did discuss this defense evidence; indeed, she discussed it extensively, as she probably had to given the emphasis the defense placed on it. We have reviewed that argument, including the excerpts defendant cites. The prosecutor argued that for many reasons the evidence regarding his mental state was not mitigating under the circumstances. But she did not argue the reversethat the evidence was actually aggravating. In addition, as noted, the court instructed the jury that the absence of any mitigating evidence was not itself aggravating. Regarding another point that defendant cites, defense counsel argued to the jury that defendant was a whipped puppy. In rebuttal, the prosecutor responded that he may once have been a whipped puppy, but he was now a mad dog. This response to the defense argument also did not suggest that defendant's mental state was itself aggravating. As she emphasized in her concluding comments, her main argument was that defendant's conduct warranted the death penalty. She did not argue that the evidence defendant presented of his mental condition itself warranted a death sentence, only that it did not warrant a life sentence. In short, we see no reasonable likelihood the jury interpreted the instructions as allowing it to consider in aggravation the evidence defendant presented of his mental state. ( People v. Kelly, supra, 1 Cal.4th at p. 525, 3 Cal.Rptr.2d 677, 822 P.2d 385.)