Opinion ID: 2636938
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Contentions regarding section 190.3, factor (b).

Text: Evidence that defendant murdered Jack Mackey was presented at defendant's penalty retrial pursuant to section 190.3, factor (b) (factor (b)), which allows a capital sentencer to consider [t]he presence or absence of criminal activity by the defendant which involved the use or attempted use of force or violence. Factor (b) refers to violent conduct other than the capital crime ( Montiel, supra, 5 Cal.4th 877, 938, 21 Cal.Rptr.2d 705, 855 P.2d 1277; People v. Balderas (1985) 41 Cal.3d 144, 201, 222 Cal.Rptr. 184, 711 P.2d 480 ( Balderas )), and it allows proof of such other violent acts committed at any time, regardless of whether they led to criminal charges or convictions (ง 190.3; People v. Hart (1999) 20 Cal.4th 546, 648-649, 85 Cal.Rptr.2d 132, 976 P.2d 683 ( Hart ); Balderas, supra, at pp. 201-202, 222 Cal.Rptr. 184, 711 P.2d 480), except acts for which the defendant was acquitted (ง 190.3; Balderas, supra, at p. 201, fn. 28, 222 Cal.Rptr. 184, 711 P.2d 480). However, the proffered violence must constitute an actual crime ( People v. Bacigalupo (1991) 1 Cal.4th 103, 148, 2 Cal.Rptr.2d 335, 820 P.2d 559 ( Bacigalupo ); Phillips, supra, 41 Cal.3d 29, 65-72, 222 Cal.Rptr. 127, 711 P.2d 423), and the court must instruct, on its own motion, that no juror may consider any alleged other violent crime in aggravation of penalty unless satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed it (e.g., People v. Champion (1995) 9 Cal.4th 879, 949, 39 Cal.Rptr.2d 547, 891 P.2d 93; People v. Miranda (1987) 44 Cal.3d 57, 97, 241 Cal. Rptr. 594, 744 P.2d 1127 ( Miranda ); People v. Robertson (1982) 33 Cal.3d 21, 53-55, 188 Cal.Rptr. 77, 655 P.2d 279). Defendant attacks this scheme in numerous respects, both facially and as applied to his case.
Defendant first urges that insofar as it allowed his capital sentencer to consider the Mackey murder, a crime for which he was never charged and convicted, factor (b) violates rights of due process, fair trial, and a reliable penalty determination guaranteed by the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. As defendant concedes, we have rejected such contentions in many cases. (E.g., People v. Jenkins (2000) 22 Cal.4th 900, 1054, 95 Cal.Rptr.2d 377, 997 P.2d 1044; People v. Barnett (1998) 17 Cal.4th 1044, 1178, 74 Cal.Rptr.2d 121, 954 P.2d 384; People v. Samayoa (1997) 15 Cal.4th 795, 863, 64 Cal.Rptr.2d 400, 938 P.2d 2; People v. Cain (1995) 10 Cal.4th 1, 69-70, 40 Cal. Rptr.2d 481, 892 P.2d 1224 ( Cain) ; People v. Medina (1990) 51 Cal.3d 870, 906-907, 274 Cal.Rptr. 849, 799 P.2d 1282; Balderas, supra, 41 Cal.3d 144, 204-205, 222 Cal. Rptr. 184, 711 P.2d 480.) We decline to reconsider them here.
Defendant urges the 1978 Mackey murder was too remote in time from his 1990-1991 penalty retrial and should have been excluded on that ground. According to defendant, admission of this stale criminal episode on the issue of penalty violated his constitutional rights of due process, fair and speedy jury trial, confrontation, and a reliable penalty determination. The contention lacks merit. Under factor (b), the prosecutor may offer evidence in aggravation of criminal violence that has occurred at any time. ( People v. Rodrigues (1994) 8 Cal.4th 1060, 1158, 36 Cal.Rptr.2d 235, 885 P.2d 1 ( Rodrigues ); People v. Heishman (1988) 45 Cal.3d 147, 192, 246 Cal.Rptr. 673, 753 P.2d 629; Balderas, supra, 41 Cal.3d 144, 202, 222 Cal.Rptr. 184, 711 P.2d 480.) This rule does not violate the constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial. ( Rodrigues, supra, at p. 1161, 36 Cal.Rptr.2d 235, 885 P.2d 1.) `[T]he state has a legitimate interest in allowing a jury to weigh and consider a defendant's prior criminal conduct in determining the appropriate penalty, so long as reasonable steps are taken to assure a fair and impartial penalty trial. [Citation.] Remoteness of the offense affects the weight, not admissibility, of the offense. [Citation.]' ( People v. Medina, supra, 11 Cal.4th 694, 772, 47 Cal.Rptr.2d 165, 906 P.2d 2, quoting Rodrigues, supra, at p. 1161, 36 Cal.Rptr.2d 235, 885 P.2d 1; see also People v. Anderson (1990) 52 Cal.3d 453, 476, 276 Cal.Rptr. 356, 801 P.2d 1107.) Defendant concedes these principles, but asserts that a 12-ฝ-year gap is too extreme as a matter of law. He is mistaken. (See, e.g., Rodrigues, supra, 8 Cal.4th 1060, 1160-1161, 36 Cal.Rptr.2d 235, 885 P.2d 1 [12-year-old crime not too remote]; People v. Anderson, supra, 52 Cal.3d 453, 476, 276 Cal.Rptr. 356, 801 P.2d 1107 [14-year-old crime not too remote].) [13] Moreover, defendant identifies no basis for suspecting that the delay unfairly prejudiced his ability to mount a defense to the Mackey homicide. He complains about the mental state of the primary prosecution witness, Deborah, and observes that there were no defense witnesses, but he points to no evidence that the passage of time contributed to these concerns. Defendant notes that Deborah did not come forward until soon before the penalty retrial, but he fails to explain how this delay compromised his ability to confront her. On the other hand, the prosecution presented a number of witnesses who testified extensively concerning the Mackey episode. Aside from Deborah, these witnesses included law enforcement officials whose memories of the Mackey case, often refreshed by reference to contemporaneous records of their homicide investigation, corroborated details of Deborah's testimony. Both Deborah and a police detective testified that within a year before the penalty retrial, Deborah directed investigators by memory to several locations pertinent to the Mackey episode, including the murder scene itself. Defendant was able to cross-examine all the prosecution witnesses at length. The appellate record thus contains no inkling that defendant's rights to due process, a fair trial, and a reliable penalty determination were violated by the delay in presenting evidence that he murdered Mackey. His attack on the staleness of the Mackey murder must therefore be rejected.
Defendant urges that all evidence of the Mackey murder should have been excluded as more prejudicial than probative. (Evid.Code, ง 352.) He concedes no such objection was made at his 1990-1991 penalty retrial, but he asserts the requirement of an objection was not then clear. On the contrary, the rule that a challenge to the admission of evidence is not preserved for appeal unless a specific and timely objection was made below stems from long-standing statutory and common law principles. (Evid.Code, ง 353, subd. (a); see Assem. Com. on Judiciary, reprinted at 29B pt. 1 West's Ann. Evid.Code, supra, foil. ง 353, p. 322.) Defendant waived the issue by failing to object. The contention lacks merit in any event. Factor (b) expressly makes a capital defendant's other violent crimes admissible on the issue of penalty. Evidence Code section 352 therefore does not permit the trial court to exclude from a capital penalty trial all evidence of such a crime on grounds that the jury's consideration of the episode would be more prejudicial than probative. ( People v. Box (2000) 23 Cal.4th 1153, 1200-1201, 99 Cal.Rptr.2d 69, 5 P.3d 130 ( Box ); People v. Ray (1996) 13 Cal.4th 313, 349-350, 52 Cal.Rptr.2d 296, 914 P.2d 846; People v. Robertson (1989) 48 Cal.3d 18, 44, 255 Cal.Rptr. 631, 767 P.2d 1109; People v. Karis (1988) 46 Cal.3d 612, 641 & fn. 21, 250 Cal.Rptr. 659, 758 P.2d 1189.) Defendant implies that because the principal witness, Deborah, was delusional and unstable, evidence that defendant murdered Mackey was too unreliable to be admitted in light of its inflammatory nature. We have already rejected this premise in other contexts; we do so again here. Once Deborah was deemed qualified to testify, the prosecution was entitled, under factor (b), to present her account of this violent crime for the jury's evaluation. From that point on, the reliability of her testimony was a jury question, and went to the weight of the evidence, not its admissibility. No error appears. For similar reasons, there is no merit to defendant's alternative contention that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object under Evidence Code section 352. Counsel is not required to proffer futile objections. (E.g., People v. Hines (1997) 15 Cal.4th 997, 1038, fn. 5, 64 Cal.Rptr.2d 594, 938 P.2d 388.)
The jury was told there was evidence that defendant had committed the robbery and murder of Jack Mackey, that no juror could consider these criminal acts as aggravating factors unless satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that defendant committed them, and that the jury could consider no other criminal acts in aggravation. However, defendant's counsel requested no instructions on the specific elements of robbery and murder. When the failure to request murder instructions was called to counsel's attention in open court, counsel admitted he had not requested such instructions. Counsel further agreed that the court had no obligation to give them in the absence of request. A minute order recited that [defendant specifically does not request instructions on [the] substantive law of other criminal acts evidence, and the jury did not receive such instructions. Nonetheless, defendant now argues the trial court's failure to instruct, sua sponte, on the elements of the crimes the jury could consider in connection with the Mackey killing violated his due process and equal protection rights to proof beyond reasonable doubt of all elements of a charged crime, as guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as his rights to a fair trial and a reliable penalty determination, as guaranteed by the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Defendant insists these rights could not be waived, but if waiver was possible, he alone, and not counsel, could waive them. If counsel's waiver was valid, he asserts, it constituted ineffective assistance. We have repeatedly rejected just such arguments (e.g., Hart, supra, 20 Cal.4th 546, 651, 85 Cal.Rptr.2d 132, 976 P.2d 683; People v. Osband (1996) 13 Cal.4th 622, 704, 55 Cal.Rptr.2d 26, 919 P.2d 640; People v. Avena (1996) 13 Cal.4th 394, 435, 53 Cal.Rptr.2d 301, 916 P.2d 1000 ( Avena ); People v. Hawkins (1995) 10 Cal.4th 920, 963-964, 42 Cal. Rptr.2d 636, 897 P.2d 574; Cain, supra, 10 Cal.4th 1, 72-74, 40 Cal.Rptr.2d 481, 892 P.2d 1224; People v. Johnson (1993) 6 Cal.4th 1, 48-49, 23 Cal.Rptr.2d 593, 859 P.2d 673; Phillips, supra, 41 Cal.3d 29, 72-73, fn. 25, 222 Cal.Rptr. 127, 711 P.2d 423), and we do so again. As we have explained, the rule absolving the court of a sua sponte duty to instruct on the elements of crimes introduced under factor (b) `is based in part on a recognition that, as [a] tactical matter, the defendant may not want the penalty phase instructions overloaded with a series of lengthy instructions on the elements of alleged other crimes because he may fear that such instructions could lead the jury to place undue emphasis on the crimes rather than on the central question of whether he should live or die. [Citations.]' ( Hart, supra, at p. 651, 85 Cal.Rptr.2d 132, 976 P.2d 683, quoting Cain, supra, at p. 72, 40 Cal. Rptr.2d 481, 892 P.2d 1224.) This may be true even when other violent crimes are the only aggravating evidence other than the circumstances of the capital crimes themselves. ( Avena, supra, at p. 435, 53 Cal.Rptr.2d 301, 916 P.2d 1000.) The court has no duty to override counsel's choice, though the court is not prohibited from giving elements instructions sua sponte where they are `vital to a proper consideration of the evidence. [Citation.]' ( Hart, supra, at p. 651, 85 Cal. Rptr.2d 132, 976 P.2d 683, quoting Cain, supra, at p. 72, 40 Cal.Rptr.2d 481, 892 P.2d 1224.) Here, counsel's admission that he was not requesting elements instructions, and that they therefore need not be given, suggests he made the tactical choice to forgo them. We cannot say as a matter of law that his decision was unreasonable. Defendant had little to gain by such instructions, because the evidence raised no substantial doubt that defendant's conduct against Mackey, as described by Deborah, included the offenses of murder and robbery. Under these circumstances, counsel could reasonably wish to avoid focusing the sentencer's attention on the ample evidence that the elements of those offenses were satisfied. For similar reasons, such instructions were not vital to a proper consideration of the evidence on the issue of penalty. Defendant analogizes to the rule that failure to instruct sua sponte on all the elements of a charged offense, thus relieving the prosecution of its burden to prove each such element beyond a reasonable doubt, is serious constitutional error. (See People v. Flood (1998) 18 Cal.4th 470, 479-480, 76 Cal.Rptr.2d 180, 957 P.2d 869.) The analogy is inapt. The defendant's history of criminal violence is relevant to the ultimate issue in a capital sentencing trial, but that issue is the appropriate penalty for the defendant's already-proven capital crimes, not whether the defendant committed the specific elements of additional criminal offenses. The California capital sentencing scheme does require that violent conduct be criminal in fact in order to constitute valid penalty evidence. (See authorities cited, ante, 106 Cal.Rptr.2d p. 611, 22 P.3d pp. 376-377.) Moreover, because evidence that the defendant committed other violent crimes is often of `overriding importance ... to the jury's life-or-death determination,'  California law imposes a foundational requirement one not mandated by the Constitutionโthat other-crimes evidence offered for this purpose be subject to the reasonable doubt standard of proof. ( Miranda, supra, 44 Cal.3d 57, 98, 241 Cal.Rptr. 594, 744 P.2d 1127; see also Avena, supra, 13 Cal.4th 394, 429, 53 Cal. Rptr.2d 301, 916 P.2d 1000.) In other words, before a sentencing juror weighs the culpable nature of such other violent criminal conduct on the issue of penalty, he or she must be highly certain that the defendant committed it. However, the ultimate question for the sentencer is simply whether the aggravating circumstances, as defined by California's death penalty law (ง 190.3), so substantially outweigh those in mitigation as to call for the penalty of death, rather than life without parole. ( People v. Brown (1985) 40 Cal.3d 512, 541-542, fn. 13, 230 Cal.Rptr. 834, 726 P.2d 516.) In making this essentially normative determination, penalty jurors need not agree on the dispositive factors, or on the existence of any specific aggravating factor or crime, as a prerequisite to imposing the death penalty. (See, e.g., Box, supra, 23 Cal.4th 1153, 1216, 99 Cal.Rptr.2d 69, 5 P.3d 130; People v. Millwee (1998) 18 Cal.4th 96, 166, 74 Cal.Rptr.2d 418, 954 P.2d 990; People v. Tuilaepa (1992) 4 Cal.4th 569, 595, 15 Cal.Rptr.2d 382, 842 P.2d 1142; Miranda, supra, 44 Cal.3d 57, 99, 241 Cal.Rptr. 594, 744 P.2d 1127; People v. Ghent (1987) 43 Cal.3d 739, 773-774, 239 Cal.Rptr. 82, 739 P.2d 1250 ( Ghent) ; People v. Rodriguez (1986) 42 Cal.3d 730, 777-779, 230 Cal. Rptr. 667, 726 P.2d 113 ( Rodriguez ).) Conversely, the prosecution has no burden of proof that death is the appropriate penalty, or that one or more aggravating factors or crimes exist, in order to obtain a judgment of death. (See Box, supra ; People v. Hawthorne (1992) 4 Cal.4th 43, 79, 14 Cal.Rptr.2d 133, 841 P.2d 118.) Indeed, we would immerse the jurors in lengthy and complicated discussions of matters wholly collateral to the penalty determination ( Ghent, supra, 43 Cal.3d 739, 773, 239 Cal.Rptr. 82, 739 P.2d 1250) were we to require sua sponte instructions focusing on the elements of particular offenses that might be included in the defendant's violent criminal history. We therefore adhere to our rule that such instructions are not required in the absence of a request. [14]
Defendant asserts the trial court erred by failing to instruct that jurors could not consider the unadjudicated Mackey murder in aggravation of penalty unless they unanimously found beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant committed it. The error, he contends, violated his rights to due process, equal protection, fair trial, trial by jury, and a reliable penalty determination under the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. [15] We have consistently applied the rule that while an individual juror may consider violent other crimes in aggravation only if he or she deems them established beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury need not unanimously find other crimes true beyond a reasonable doubt before individual jurors may consider them. Unanimity is required only as to the appropriate penalty. (E.g., Hart, supra, 20 Cal.4th 546, 649, 85 Cal.Rptr.2d 132, 976 P.2d 683; People v. Stanley (1995) 10 Cal.4th 764, 823, 42 Cal. Rptr.2d 543, 897 P.2d 481; Livaditis, supra, 2 Cal.4th 759, 785, 9 Cal.Rptr.2d 72, 831 P.2d 297; People v. Pinholster (1992) 1 Cal.4th 865, 974, 4 Cal.Rptr.2d 765, 824 P.2d 571; Bacigalupo, supra, 1 Cal.4th 103, 135, 2 Cal.Rptr.2d 335, 820 P.2d 559; Miranda, supra, 44 Cal.3d 57, 99, 241 Cal. Rptr. 594, 744 P.2d 1127; Ghent, supra, 43 Cal.3d 739, 773-774, 239 Cal.Rptr. 82, 739 P.2d 1250; Rodriguez, supra, 42 Cal.3d 730, 777-779, 230 Cal.Rptr. 667, 726 P.2d 113.) Defendant presents no compelling reason to reconsider this long line of authority.