Opinion ID: 4103812
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Manner of Execution

Text: Defendant sought to introduce evidence about how a person would die in the gas chamber. In discussing the question of admissibility of the evidence, the trial court noted a new law would soon go into effect, allowing a condemned person to opt for lethal injection. The prosecution objected to defendant‘s proposed evidence, asserting that if defendant were allowed to present such evidence, it intended to introduce evidence concerning the conditions of confinement for a life prisoner. The trial court ruled that if the parties stipulated to each other‘s evidence, it would not intervene, but it would otherwise sustain the prosecutor‘s objection.16 The parties did not stipulate and the evidence about the gas chamber was excluded. Thereafter, in closing argument, the prosecutor addressed testimony defendant had presented from the two jail chaplains, both of whom suggested defendant was a compassionate person. The prosecutor argued defendant was like a Nazi soldier who worked in the crematoriums and gas chambers during the day 16 The trial court‘s ruling was correct. ―Our cases make clear that information about administration of the death penalty does not aid the jury in making an individualized determination of the appropriate penalty in a particular case.‖ (People v. Pride (1992) 3 Cal.4th 195, 260.) 104 but otherwise led an apparently normal and unexceptional life. In rebuttal, defense counsel replied: ―I found it exceptionally ironic that [the prosecutor] talks about an analogy of Cathy Thompson and Nazis who gas Jews in World War II since that is precisely what they want to do with Cathy Thompson is death by lethal gas.‖ Defense counsel continued: ―I leave for your consideration and thought [that] even in . . . the Gulf War where the task is to kill your enemy. The one thing that we think of as unconscionable is the use of lethal gas.‖ Defense counsel mentioned lethal gas once more, saying: ―Perhaps it‘s beneficial to ask yourself if you vote for death, would you travel to San Quentin to witness the execution? If you vote for death, would you have the guts to push the button to drop the cyanide pellets?‖ Following the close of argument, the prosecutor argued that because defense counsel had raised the issue of execution by lethal gas in her closing argument, the trial court should instruct the jury that, should it vote for death, defendant would be able to elect lethal injection instead of gas as a method of execution. The trial court agreed, and over defense objection, instructed the jury: ―During the defense argument reference was made to the death penalty being carried out by lethal gas. Effective the 1st of January, 1993, the law will change allowing the condemned to select between lethal gas or lethal injection.‖ The trial court thereafter denied defendant‘s motion for a mistrial. Defendant contends the trial court‘s instruction violated her right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Citing Caldwell v. Mississippi (1985) 472 U.S. 320 in support, she argues that by informing the jury that she would be entitled to elect an alternative to lethal gas as a method of execution, the instruction diminished the jury‘s sense of responsibility for its sentencing decision. In Caldwell, the high court reversed a Mississippi death sentence because the prosecutor had argued to 105 the jury that it should not view its verdict as the final word because an appellate court would review the jury‘s decision for correctness. In reversing the judgment, the high court explained that ―it is constitutionally impermissible [under the Eighth Amendment] to rest a death sentence on a determination made by a sentencer who has been led to believe that the responsibility for determining the appropriateness of the defendant‘s death rests elsewhere.‖ (Caldwell, supra, at pp. 328–329.) As we explained in People v. Ledesma (2006) 39 Cal.4th 641, later high court cases have suggested that Caldwell should not be given an expansive reading: ―Caldwell simply requires that the jury not be mis[led] into believing that the responsibility for the sentencing decision lies elsewhere.‖ (Ledesma, supra, at p. 733, discussing Romano v. Oklahoma (1994) 512 U.S. 1.) To determine whether the jury was misled, we must ask how a reasonable juror would have understood the challenged instruction. (People v. Pearson (2013) 56 Cal.4th 393, 476; see Estelle v. McGuire (1991) 502 U.S. 62, 72 [―in reviewing an ambiguous instruction . . . , we inquire ‗whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury has applied the challenged instruction in a way‘ that violates the Constitution‖].) We find the trial court‘s instruction regarding the method of execution could not reasonably have misled the jury into believing ultimate responsibility for its penalty decision lay elsewhere. The court truthfully informed the jury that execution by lethal gas was no longer the only option because a new law would enable defendant to elect an alternative method of execution. Nothing about that information suggested responsibility for the jury‘s life-or-death decision lay anywhere other than with the 12 jurors. Although the instruction communicated to the jury that the method of execution would, to some degree, be defendant‘s choice, such information is not equivalent to informing the jury that it should consider its role in any way diminished. We thus reject as unreasonable defendant‘s claim the instruction told ―the jurors that the final 106 decision on [defendant‘s] execution rested with [her] . . . thus diminishing their sense of responsibility for their penalty decision.‖ Accordingly, we find the instruction did not violate defendant‘s rights under the Eighth Amendment.