Opinion ID: 1351576
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Claim of Error on Refusal to Delete Extreme From Extreme Mental or Emotional Disturbance

Text: Defendant requested the court to delete the adjective extreme from the penalty factor concerning Whether or not the offense was committed while the defendant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance. (Italics added.) The court refused. (28) Defendant contends that the court erred. He argues in substance that the instruction as given, without the deletion requested, amounted to an incorrect statement of the law: (1) under both the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and article I, sections 7, 15, and 17, of the California Constitution, `the sentencer ... [may] not be precluded from considering, as a mitigating factor, any aspect of the defendant's character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death[]' ( Skipper v. South Carolina (1986) 476 U.S. 1, 4 [90 L.Ed.2d 1, 6, 106 S.Ct. 1669], quoting Eddings v. Oklahoma (1982) 455 U.S. 104, 110 [71 L.Ed.2d 1, 8, 102 S.Ct. 869], quoting in turn Lockett v. Ohio (1978) 438 U.S. 586, 604 [57 L.Ed.2d 973, 990, 8 S.Ct. 2954], italics in original (plur. opn. by Burger, C.J.) [construing federal constitutional provisions]); (2) defendant proffered mental or emotional disturbance, nonextreme as well as extreme, as a basis for life imprisonment without possibility of parole; and (3) contrary to the constitutional principle stated above, the challenged instruction implied that the jury could not consider mental or emotional disturbance less than extreme in mitigation of penalty. The point must be rejected. To be sure, the major premise of his argument is sound. But a crucial minor premise is not: the instruction as given, without the deletion requested, did not carry the preclusive implication defendant claims it did. Again, what is crucial for present purposes is the meaning that the instruction communicated to the jury. As noted in part IV.G.2, ante, insofar as the claim rests on the United States Constitution, the standard for determining the instruction's meaning is the reasonable likelihood test of Boyde v. California, supra, 494 U.S. 370 [108 L.Ed.2d 316, 110 S.Ct. 1190]. Insofar as it rests on the California Constitution, our recent cases compel the conclusion that the same standard is applicable. The jury was expressly told that they could take into account Any ... circumstance  in addition to those specified  which extenuates the gravity of the crime even though it is not a legal excuse for 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, whether or not related to the offense for which he is on trial. (Brackets in original.) Defendant's argument to the contrary notwithstanding, there is no reasonable likelihood that the jury would have inferred from the foregoing that they could not consider mental or emotional disturbance of any degree whatever in mitigation of penalty. (Compare People v. Medina, supra, 51 Cal.3d at pp. 901-902 [rejecting a claim similar to defendant's].)