Opinion ID: 1311837
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Artificial Inflation of Aggravating Factors and Mechanical Balancing of Factors.

Text: Defendant asserts the trial court impermissibly considered both felony-murder special circumstances and engaged in the double counting of aggravating factors under paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of CALJIC No. 8.84.1, thus artificially inflating the circumstances weighing in favor of death. He argues further that the court improperly based its decision on a mechanical balancing process rather than an independent assessment of whether death was the appropriate punishment, an error assertedly compounded by its implied findings that the absence of certain mitigating factors was an aggravating circumstance. Nothing in the court's statement of reasons supports defendant's assertions of error. The court did not apply the evidence to specific enumerated factors and tally aggravating as against mitigating factors. Rather, it recited the evidence, the special circumstances and the applicable and inapplicable aggravating and mitigating factors as part of an integrated process directed to determining whether the evidence supported the jury's choice of death as the appropriate penalty in light of the offense and the offender. The court's instruction to the jury that if aggravating circumstances outweighed mitigating it could (but was not required to) impose a sentence of death ( ante, fn. 16, p. 39) refutes defendant's claim the court understood the process to be one of a mechanical weighing of factors. Nor did the court err in reciting mitigating factors that did not apply, e.g., that defendant did not act under duress or the domination of another person, to wit: Crenshaw; he was not an accomplice whose participation was relatively minor; he was not under the influence of mental or emotional disturbance; and his age had no bearing in mitigating his homicidal conduct. Because this was a two-person crime and much of the defense was directed to placing primary responsibility on Crenshaw, defendant's relative culpability was relevant. And because defendant had placed his emotional and mental problems in issue, these too were relevant. (37) A court does not err in observing the inapplicability of potentially relevant mitigating factors. (Cf. People v. Rodriguez, supra, 42 Cal.3d at pp. 789-790.) Nothing in the court's statement suggests it considered the absence of the mitigating factors a circumstance in aggravation. (Compare Rodriguez, supra, with People v. Davenport, supra, 41 Cal.3d 247, 288-289.)