Opinion ID: 1181110
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Mental State Instructions.

Text: (43) Defendant argues that the trial court's instructions relating to mental disturbance improperly limited consideration of his mental condition in violation of the principle that the jury must be permitted to give weight to all aspects of a defendant's character and record and the circumstances of the offense. (See Lockett v. Ohio, supra, 438 U.S. 586, 604 [57 L.Ed.2d 973, 989-990]; Eddings v. Oklahoma, supra, 455 U.S. 104, 110 [71 L.Ed.2d 1, 8].) Pursuant to factors (d) and (h) of CALJIC No. 8.84.1, the jury was instructed to consider in determining penalty (d) whether or not the offense was committed while the defendant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance and (h) whether or not at the time of the offense the capacity of the defendant to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was impaired as a result of mental disease or defect or the effects of intoxication. Defendant maintains that factor (d), by requiring an extreme condition, impermissibly excludes consideration of a lesser mental disturbance. He further maintains that the similarity between factor (h) and the test for legal insanity [28] would mislead the jury, which at the sanity phase of trial had found defendant sane, to believe that it could not consider defendant's mental disease or defect in mitigation. In People v. Ghent, supra, 43 Cal.3d at page 776, we rejected the contention that the provision of the 1977 death penalty law which referred to extreme mental or emotional disturbance deprived the defendant of his right to have the jury consider all his mitigating evidence, in light of the further catchall provision of the statute, which directed the jury to consider any other circumstance which extenuates the gravity of the crime (former ง 190.3, factor (j); see now ง 190.3, factor (k)). We determined that under the latter instruction the jury could take into account a mental condition of the defendant which, though perhaps not deemed `extreme,' nonetheless mitigates the seriousness of the offense. (43 Cal.3d at p. 776.) The same is true under the 1978 law. In the instant case, no argument was made that defendant's mental or emotional disturbance could be considered only if extreme, the prosecutor recognized that defendant had mental problems, and defense counsel expressly argued that defendant was under duress or emotional disturbance. Nor do we agree with defendant that factor (h) suggested to the jury that, having found defendant sane, it could not consider his asserted mental defects or disease in mitigation. Whereas the insanity instruction requires that a defendant lack substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the law, factor (h) requires only that his capacity to do so be impaired. The difference between the two standards is readily apparent. Further, both the prosecutor and defense counsel informed the jury that defendant's mental condition could properly be considered even though the jury had found him to be legally sane. [29] Moreover, in response to an inquiry from the jury during deliberations as to whether instruction (i) โ the age of defendant at the time of the crime โ referred to chronological age or state of mental development, the court instructed the jury that state of mental development is provided for under (h) and/or (k). On the record before us there is nothing to suggest that the jury failed to give full consideration to defendant's evidence of his mental or emotional state at the time of the offense.