Opinion ID: 2630926
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Consciousness of Guilt (Letner, Tobin)

Text: Defendants contend the instructions informing the jury that evidence of defendants' consciousness of guilt may give rise to an inference of their guilt (but that it is insufficient by itself to prove guilt) violated their constitutional rights, because the instructions were impermissibly overbroad and argumentative. [31] Defendants assert the instructions failed to state that evidence of consciousness of guilt must be considered as to each defendant individually. As we previously mentioned, however, the trial court gave instructions emphasizing that each defendant was entitled to the jury's separate consideration of the evidence against him. Defendants also urge that the instruction concerning false statements was improper because the statements at issue did not concern or relate to Pontbriant's murder, and therefore it was irrational to draw an inference of defendants' guilt of the crimes based upon their unrelated lies. The untrue statements made by defendants to Officer Wightman and to Denise Novotny regarding defendants' travels concerned the crimes committed against Pontbriant in the sense they tended to establish that defendants were attempting to conceal those crimes and to flee before they were apprehended. This inference drawn from the evidence was not irrational. We have rejected defendants' remaining contentions in numerous prior cases, and perceive no reason to reconsider those decisions. The consciousness-of-guilt instructions did not improperly permit the jury to find that defendants possessed a specific mental state, nor did these instructions by themselves allow the jury to find defendants guilty of all of the charged offenses. The instructions were not impermissibly argumentative. ( Rundle, supra, 43 Cal.4th at pp. 152-154.)