Opinion ID: 1179776
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Failure to Instruct re Meaning of Life Without Parole.

Text: (34) Defendant requested an instruction that the jury must assume a sentence of death meant defendant would be executed, while a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole meant [defendant] will spend the rest of his life confined in state prison and will not be paroled at any time. The instruction was not given. The omission was entirely proper under California law, since the proffered instruction is inaccurate. The Governor may ameliorate any sentence by use of the commutation or pardon power, and it is thus `incorrect to tell the jury the penalty of ... life without possibility of parole will inexorably be carried out' [citation]. ( People v. Gordon (1990) 50 Cal.3d 1223, 1277 [270 Cal. Rptr. 451, 792 P.2d 251], quoting People v. Thompson (1988) 45 Cal.3d 86, 130 [246 Cal. Rptr. 245, 753 P.2d 37].) However, defendant claims the omission of this instruction was federal constitutional error under an intervening United States Supreme Court decision, Simmons v. South Carolina (1994) 512 U.S. 154 [129 L.Ed.2d 133, 114 S.Ct. 2187]. We find Simmons inapposite. In Simmons, a recidivist's prior felony convictions rendered him statutorily ineligible for parole if he suffered a further conviction for a violent crime. In his subsequent trial for a capital offense, the jury understood that he would suffer life imprisonment if not sentenced to death. However, the trial court prohibited defense counsel from inquiring about prospective jurors' understanding of life imprisonment, and the court barred all reference during the trial to the defendant's ineligibility for parole. When arguing for the death penalty, the prosecutor emphasized that defendant Simmons represented a future danger to society if left alive. In multiple opinions, seven members of the United States Supreme Court concluded that the resulting death judgment must be reversed. Justices Blackmun, Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg reasoned that, at least where the prosecution makes defendant's future danger to society a capital penalty issue, the due process clause gives the defendant the right to explain or deny the prosecution's theory by informing the jury of the actual duration of prison confinement if a life sentence were imposed in lieu of death. ( Simmons v. South Carolina, supra, 512 U.S. 154, ___ [129 L.Ed.2d 133, 141-146, 114 S.Ct. 2187, 2192-2196].) The plurality also rejected the contention that the jury in the Simmons trial must have inferred ineligibility for parole when told that the term life imprisonment should be understood in its plain and ordinary meaning and that parole was not to be considered. ( Id. at pp. ___-___ [129 L.Ed.2d at pp. 141-146, 114 S.Ct. at pp. 2196-2198].) In a separate opinion, Justice O'Connor, joined by the Chief Justice and Justice Kennedy, expressed similar views. ( Id. at pp. ___-___ [129 L.Ed.2d at pp. 149-151, 114 S.Ct. at pp. 2200-2201] (conc. opn. of O'Connor, J.).) Defendant claims that because the prosecutor emphasized his future dangerousness in closing argument, the instruction he requested was necessary under Simmons. Defendant is mistaken. The due process deficiencies in the Simmons trial do not exist in a California capital penalty trial. Every California penalty jury is specifically instructed that it must choose between two possible sentences, death or confinement in [the] state prison for a term of life without [ the ] possibility of parole. (ง 190.3, italics added; CALJIC No. 8.88 (5th ed. 1988); former CALJIC No. 8.84.2.) Indeed, the plurality opinion in Simmons itself noted that California is one of seventeen states in which a capital penalty jury is expressly informed of the defendant's ineligibility for parole, and one of nine states in which a capital jury's only sentencing alternatives are death or life without parole. ( Simmons v. South Carolina, supra, 512 U.S. 154, ___, fn. 7 [129 L.Ed.2d 133, 144, 114 S.Ct. 2187, 2195].) Nothing in Simmons indicates that once the jury knows the defendant is ineligible for parole under the sentencing scheme it is required to apply, it must receive further instructions designed to deflect concern that events which might actually occur in the future, such as commutation or pardon, would nonetheless allow the defendant's release. Nor does Simmons suggest the jury must be instructed in a manner that affirmatively conceals the possibility of commutation or pardon. We decline to infer such a federal constitutional requirement. Defendant's claim of error must therefore be rejected. [30]