Opinion ID: 2630185
Heading Depth: 6
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Asserted Deficiencies in the Form of the Questions

Text: As a further general objection to the exclusions based on the questionnaires, defendant contends that the form of the questions was confusing or biased and thus answers to those questions could not provide an adequate basis for the trial court's rulings. Because defense counsel initially drafted the questions, agreed to the various revisions the trial court and prosecutor suggested, and accepted, without apparent objection, the final form of the questionnaire, defendant waived these claims. Were we nevertheless to address the merits, we would find the claims meritless. Defendant first asserts the questionnaire used specialized legal terms such as mitigation and aggravation, penalty phase, and special circumstances. He contends that to conclude the prospective jurors, without any guidance or explanation, would have grasped the full significance of these concepts when they wrote their responses is unreasonable. But defendant's premise is faulty because the trial court explained the terms and procedures to the prospective jurors before submitting the questionnaires to them. As noted above, the trial court presented a lengthy introduction to the case and to the questionnaire in which it explained the guilt and penalty phases, special circumstances, and evidence in aggravation and mitigation. The prospective jurors were thus given sufficient explanation of the legal terms to respond intelligently to the questions. Defendant also challenges the wording of question No. 60, which stated that no circumstance exists in which a jury must automatically return a judgment of death, and that, irrespective of what the evidence might show, the jury always retains the option in the penalty phase of choosing life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Question No. 60 then went on to ask, given that two options would be available, can you see yourself (A) voting for the death penalty or (B) voting for life imprisonment. Defendant contends a prospective juror might answer no to (A) simply because he or she could not imagine the situation, rather than because he or she would be unable to consider the option of imposing the death penalty. Defendant's reading of this question is unreasonable and thus unpersuasive. Within the context of the questionnaire as a whole and the court's explanations to the prospective jurors, the jurors would reasonably have understood the question as referring to their willingness to consider the option of imposing the death penalty. (See People v. Rogers (2006) 39 Cal.4th 826, 873 [48 Cal.Rptr.3d 1, 141 P.3d 135] [reviewing court inquires whether the jury was `reasonably likely' to have construed ambiguous jury instructions in a manner that violates the defendant's rights].) Finally, defendant contends question No. 58 was used to eliminate death penalty opponents when they answered they would never impose the death penalty, but not to eliminate death penalty proponents when they answered they would always impose it. This argument merely recasts defendant's equal protection claim, discussed below, that the trial court was more willing to dismiss life-leaning than death-leaning prospective jurors on the basis of their questionnaires alone. In sum, even assuming defendant had preserved the claim for appeal, his challenges to the questionnaire's adequacy are meritless.