Opinion ID: 2551468
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 19

Heading: Instruction on Considering Age

Text: Defendant sought but was refused this instruction: Mere chronological age is a factor over which one can exercise no control. It is not an aggravating factor. Instead, the trial court gave the jury two instructions on age. First, it directed: In determining which penalty is to be imposed on defendant, you shall consider all of the evidence which has been received during any part of the trial of this case, except as you may be hereafter instructed. You shall consider, take into account and be guided by the following factors, if you find them to be applicable in this case: [¶] ... [¶] (i) The age of the defendant at the time of the crime. (See § 190.3, factor (i).) But the court also instructed, at defendant's behest: Mere chronological age, a factor over which one can exercise no control, should not of itself be deemed an aggravating factor or a mitigating factor. In closing argument, the prosecutor said of the age instructions that [a]ge by itself is not by definition either an aggravating circumstance or a mitigating circumstance, but that in a particular case [y]ou can make of it ... whatever you wish. In the case of an inexperienced and immature offender, age might be mitigating. But in this case, if anything, age is a factor in aggravation, ... because when the defendant committed this crime he was approximately 35, 36 years of age and had not learned from prior crimes and punishments. Defendant claims that giving the second instruction violated his right under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution to have the trier of fact for penalty consider a broad range of mitigating evidence. ( Penry v. Lynaugh (1989) 492 U.S. 302, 327-328, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 106 L.Ed.2d 256.) The trial court was relying on language in People v. Rodriguez (1986) 42 Cal.3d 730, 230 Cal.Rptr. 667, 726 P.2d 113. We noted that mere chronological age, a factor over which one can exercise no control, should not of itself be deemed an aggravating factor. (Id. at p. 789, 230 Cal.Rptr. 667, 726 P.2d 113.) We proceeded in Rodriguez to say: However, the sentencing jury is entitled to know that a defendant's crime lacks certain elements the state deems relevant to leniency in the choice of penalty. Thus, we see no impropriety in prosecutorial argument that a defendant is less deserving of leniency (as opposed to more deserving of death) than a younger, perhaps less sophisticated offender. (Ibid.) There was no error, and in any event, because defendant sought the instruction, he may not complain of it now. ( People v. Ochoa, supra, 19 Cal.4th 353, 458-59, 79 Cal.Rptr.2d 408, 966 P.2d 442.) We reject his claim.