Opinion ID: 2614001
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Alleged arbitrary, discriminatory, and disproportionate application of penalty

Text: (40) Defendant contends that imposition of the death penalty is arbitrary, discriminatory, and disproportionate under the due process and equal protection clauses and violates the prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment set forth in the California and federal Constitutions. He requested that the trial court, and now requests that this court, undertake a comparative sentence review. We have observed on prior occasions that intercase proportionality review is not required by the federal Constitution. ( Pulley v. Harris, supra, 465 U.S. 37, 50-51 [79 L.Ed.2d 29, 40-51]; People v. Mincey, supra, 2 Cal.4th 408, 476; People v. Hayes, supra, 52 Cal.3d 577, 645.) Moreover, this court consistently has held that such review is not mandated under our state Constitution in order to ensure due process and equal protection, nor is it required in order to avoid the infliction of cruel or unusual punishment. ( People v. Mincey, supra, 2 Cal.4th 408, 476; People v. Lewis, supra, 50 Cal.3d 262, 285; People v. Babbitt, supra, 45 Cal.3d 660, 725.) In particular, we previously have rejected the argument now made by defendant, premised upon equal protection principles, that disparate sentence review under section 1170, subdivision (f), must be performed in capital cases. ( People v. Cox, supra, 53 Cal.3d 618, 691; People v. Allen (1986) 42 Cal.3d 1222, 1286-1288 [232 Cal. Rptr. 849, 729 P.2d 115].) In any event, unless a defendant demonstrates that the state's capital punishment law operates in an arbitrary and capricious manner, the circumstance that he or she has been sentenced to death, while others who may be similarly situated have received a lesser sentence, does not establish disproportionality violative of the Eighth Amendment. ( McCleskey v. Kemp (1987) 481 U.S. 279, 306-307 [95 L.Ed.2d 262, 287-288, 107 S.Ct. 1756]; People v. Visciotti, supra, 2 Cal.4th 1, 77.) Moreover, the opportunities afforded the prosecutor for discretionary action and, in particular, discretionary leniency toward defendants, do not render a particular capital sentencing provision arbitrary or capricious. ( McCleskey v. Kemp, supra, 481 U.S. 279, 307-308 & fn. 28 [95 L.Ed.2d 262, 288-289]; People v. Marshall, supra, 50 Cal.3d 907, 946-947; People v. Keenan, supra, 46 Cal.3d 478, 505-506.) We have considered the material to which defendant has referred, consisting of defense counsel's case summaries for 23 prosecutions involving death-eligible defendants arising in a 6-county area including Butte and Placer Counties, offered at the time of defendant's motion for modification of the death verdict pursuant to section 190.4. Even assuming the accuracy of the summaries (which is not otherwise established), the penalties sought (and imposed) reflect nothing other than the appropriate exercise of prosecutorial discretion in light of the unique factual circumstances of each case. We conclude that the type of showing required to invalidate California's death penalty law has not been made. (See People v. Morris, supra, 53 Cal.3d 152, 235, fn. 25; People v. Marshall, supra, 50 Cal.3d 907, 946-947; People v. McLain, supra, 46 Cal.3d 97, 121.) (41) Defendant also requests that this court perform an intracase proportionality review, urging that the sentence imposed was disproportionate in light of defendant's age and background and the circumstances of this case. We previously have concluded that the imposition of a death sentence is subject to such review, because a sentence grossly disproportionate to the offenses for which it is imposed may violate the prohibition against cruel or unusual punishment. (Cal. Const., art. I, § 17; People v. Mincey, supra, 2 Cal.4th 408, 476.) The evidence presented by the defense in mitigation, emphasizing primarily the love and respect defendant had engendered in his family and peers, was not insubstantial. At the time of the commission of the present offenses, defendant's age was only 19 years and 4 months, and the prosecution did not present evidence of prior criminality. Although certain evidence suggesting defendant suffered from mild brain damage was offered by the defense, it was neutralized by the testimony of various sympathetic witnesses that he assisted others with schoolwork and was an above-average student, and the circumstance that he was enrolled at a state university at the time of the offenses. Far outweighing those mitigating circumstances, however, the evidence that related to the commission of the offenses established that defendant, having selected his particularly vulnerable victims and having prepared to overpower and destroy them in advance, gained entrance to the victims' home on the pretext of accepting a job from them, rendered the victims completely helpless, and committed deliberate acts of exceptional cruelty, culminating in their death  acts wholly gratuitous and unnecessary to his plan to rob them. The evidence pertaining to the offenses utterly refutes defendant's contention that his death sentence was arbitrary, discriminatory, and disproportionate. (See People v. Alcala (1992) 4 Cal.4th 742, 809-810 [15 Cal. Rptr.2d 432, 842 P.2d 1192]; People v. Mincey, supra, 2 Cal.4th 408, 476-477; People v. Edwards, supra, 54 Cal.3d 787, 848-849.)