Opinion ID: 2638434
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Constitutionality of penalty retrials

Text: Defendant first argues that penalty retrials are unconstitutional per se. He reasons juries must view a defendant as cloaked with a presumption of innocence, but a jury empanelled for a retrial of penalty would not do so. Moreover, he contends a jury that had just convicted a defendant of capital crimes would consider as a mitigating factor at the penalty phase any lingering doubts it had of the defendant's guilt, whereas a second penalty jury would not harbor such doubts. He claims use of a different jury to decide questions of guilt and penalty violates his federal constitutional rights to due process, equal protection, a fair trial, and to a reliable and proportional sentence in violation of the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. He also claims the penalty retrial violates analogous guarantees in the California Constitution. That a jury that has just convicted a defendant would view him as cloaked with innocence seems unlikely. In any event, as defendant concedes, we rejected these precise arguments in previous cases. (See, e.g., People v. Davenport (1995) 11 Cal.4th 1171, 1192-1194, 47 Cal.Rptr.2d 800, 906 P.2d 1068.) Defendant requests we reconsider our precedents but provides no grounds to do so.