Opinion ID: 1351576
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Claim of Error on Refusal to Instruct on the Burden of Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt as to Aggravating Circumstances

Text: (31) Defendant requested the court to instruct the jury to the following effect: (1) they could consider a circumstance in aggravation only if they were satisfied of its existence beyond a reasonable doubt; (2) they could fix the penalty at death only if they found that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating beyond a reasonable doubt; and (3) they could so fix the penalty only if they determined that death was appropriate beyond a reasonable doubt. The court refused. Defendant contends that the court erred. He claims that the requested instruction correctly stated the law. In support, he argues that imposition on the People of the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt as to each of the issues identified above is required by the 1978 death penalty law. He is altogether unpersuasive. He then argues that imposition of the burden is required by the Constitutions of the United States and California, specifically: (1) the cruel and unusual punishments clauses of the Eighth Amendment and article I, section 17; (2) the due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and article I, sections 7 and 15; and (3) the equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and article I, section 7. That is not the case. (E.g., People v. Marshall, supra, 50 Cal.3d at pp. 935-936.)