Opinion ID: 1122530
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Miscellaneous Instructional and Prosecutorial Misconduct Claims

Text: (18) Defendant contends the trial court erred in rejecting his request to delete assertedly inapplicable mitigating factors from the list of sentencing factors read to the jury. (See § 190.3; CALJIC No. 8.84.1 (1986 rev.).) [28] We have repeatedly rejected this claim. Sentencing discretion is best guided where the jury is fully apprised of the factors which the state deems relevant to the penalty determination. The jury is entitled to know that defendant's crimes lack certain characteristics which might justify more lenient treatment than other offenses in the same general class. [Citations.] The jury itself decides which of the listed factors apply in the particular case. [Citation.] ( People v. Whitt (1990) 51 Cal.3d 620, 653 [274 Cal. Rptr. 252, 798 P.2d 849].) (19) Defendant next contends the prosecutor impermissibly argued that the absence of mitigating evidence in certain statutory categories was aggravating. (See People v. Davenport (1985) 41 Cal.3d 247, 288-290 [221 Cal. Rptr. 794, 710 P.2d 861] [ Davenport ].) Defendant also suggests for the first time in his reply brief that the prosecutor took an improper arithmetical approach towards the sentencing factors in closing argument. (See People v. Brown (1985) 40 Cal.3d 512, 541 [220 Cal. Rptr. 637, 709 P.2d 440] [ Brown ].) Defendant's penalty trial occurred in mid-1988, after Davenport and Brown were decided. His failure to object on such grounds below waives the claims on appeal. ( People v. Montiel (1993) 5 Cal.4th 877, 937 [21 Cal. Rptr.2d 705, 855 P.2d 1277].) In any event, both claims clearly lack merit. In discussing proposed penalty instructions with the court outside the jury's presence, counsel on both sides agreed, consistent with Davenport, that the mere absence of a mitigating circumstance cannot be considered aggravating. The prosecutor promised to adhere to this principle in argument to the jury. During closing argument, the prosecutor observed that evidence had been introduced in three potentially aggravating categories under section 190.3  factors (a) (circumstances of the crime), (b) (other violent crimes), and (c) (prior felony conviction)  and in one potentially mitigating category, factor (k) (character and background). He urged the jury to find that the remaining sentencing factors did not apply and that the applicable factors, once weighed, favored death. The prosecutor never said the absence of mitigating evidence in some categories was aggravating, and, instead, specifically told the jury that the opposite was true  just because [a factor] does not apply doesn't mean it's aggravating. No violation of Davenport occurred. Although the prosecutor asserted that a certain number of aggravating and mitigating circumstances were present in this case, nothing in his argument contravened Brown by suggesting that the appropriate penalty was to be determined through mechanistic means. The prosecutor made clear that you don't just count them up, three on the prosecution side and one on the defense side. It's not a mere counting of factors and arbitrary assigning of weights. [You are] free ... to assign whatever moral or sympathetic value you determine appropriate to each and all of the factors. In other words, the prosecutor's argument faithfully tracked the standard post- Brown instructions given in this case. No misconduct of the sort urged by defendant occurred. Defendant also avers, in passing, that the instructions failed adequately to inform the jury that it could give independent mitigating weight to aspects of [defendant's] character and record. (See Lockett v. Ohio (1978) 438 U.S. 586, 605 [57 L.Ed.2d 973, 990, 98 S.Ct. 2954].) Not so. As to factor (k) under section 190.3, the jury was instructed that this category includes any circumstance which extenuates the gravity of the crime and any sympathetic or other aspect of the defendant's character or record that the defendant offers as a basis for a sentence less than death. (See People v. Easley (1983) 34 Cal.3d 858, 878, fn. 10 [196 Cal. Rptr. 309, 671 P.2d 813].) The jury also learned that it could assign any weight to each of the factors, that a death judgment could be imposed only if aggravation substantially outweighed mitigation, and that one mitigating circumstance may be sufficient to impose life imprisonment even where more than one aggravating circumstance was found to exist. There was no possibility the jury misunderstood its obligation to consider defendant's character and background evidence, or believed it lacked power to spare his life on the basis of that evidence alone.