Opinion ID: 1170873
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Instructions Regarding Unjoined Perpetrators of the Same Crime

Text: (23a) Defendant next objects to the giving of the following instruction on unjoined perpetrators of the same crime: There has been evidence in this case indicating that a person other than defendant was or may have been involved in the crime for which the defendant is on trial. [¶] You must not discuss or give any consideration as to why the other person is not being prosecuted in this trial or whether he has been or will be prosecuted. (CALJIC No. 2.11.5.) Defendant maintains the instruction undermined his efforts to defend himself by suggesting Huffman was the killer; the instruction had this effect, he urges, because it deflected the jury's attention away from Huffman's role. As the People point out, the instruction does not tell the jury it cannot consider evidence that someone else committed the crime. (See generally People v. Hall (1986) 41 Cal.3d 826 [226 Cal. Rptr. 112, 718 P.2d 99].) It merely says the jury is not to speculate on whether someone else might or might not be prosecuted. We agree that the instruction would be more informative and might better deter speculation if it told the jury explicitly that its sole duty is to decide whether this defendant is guilty and that there are many reasons why someone who also appears to have been involved might not be a codefendant in this particular trial. (Cf. 1 Devitt & Blackmar, Federal Jury Practice and Instructions (3d ed. 1977) § 11.06.) Nonetheless, as far as it goes the instruction accurately states the law and does not appear to have been misleading. Defendant argues that another consequence of the instruction was that the jurors, doubting whether someone else was being brought to justice for this crime, might have decided to convict defendant so that at least one person involved would be punished, even if they believed his role was marginal. But such a claim amounts to the untenable assertion that whenever a person implicated in a crime is brought to trial, the jury  desirous of punishing someone for the crime  will be inclined to convict the accused regardless of the actual extent of his involvement. In the absence of a clear showing to the contrary, we must believe the jury presumed this defendant innocent as it was instructed to do and convicted him of specific crimes on the basis of the evidence, not simply from an indiscriminate desire to punish.