Opinion ID: 2507905
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Refused Instruction on Scope of Mitigation Evidence.

Text: Defendant argues that the trial court erred in refusing to give proposed instruction No. 1. This instruction enumerated various factors to be included in mitigation, including childhood abuse suffered by defendant and defendant's lack of emotional maturity. [16] Defendant argues that under federal law, he is entitled at the penalty phase to clear instructions which not only do not preclude consideration of mitigating factors, [citation], but which also `guid[e] and focu[s] the jury's objective consideration of the particularized circumstances of the individual offense and the individual offender ...' [citation]. ( Spivey v. Zant (5th Cir.1981) 661 F.2d 464, 471, quoting Jurek v. Texas (1976) 428 U.S. 262, 274, 96 S.Ct. 2950, 49 L.Ed.2d 929.) He is incorrect. Such a pinpoint instruction, which asks the jury to draw inferences favorable to defendant regarding particular items of evidence, properly belongs not in instructions, but in the arguments of counsel to the jury. ( People v. Wright (1988) 45 Cal.3d 1126, 1135, 248 Cal.Rptr. 600, 755 P.2d 1049.) Defendant also argues the trial court erred in refusing to give proposed instruction No. 5, which would have instructed the jury in part that [m]itigating factors are potentially unlimited. [17] The trial court correctly rejected this instruction as duplicative of CALJIC No. 8.85(k). [18] (See People v. Benson (1990) 52 Cal.3d 754, 805 n. 12, 276 Cal.Rptr. 827, 802 P.2d 330; People v. Farmer (1989) 47 Cal.3d 888, 889-890, 254 Cal.Rptr. 508, 765 P.2d 940.) This court has interpreted section 190.3 factor (k), which CALJIC No. 8.85(k) incorporates, as `allow[ing] the jury to consider a virtually unlimited range of mitigating circumstances.' ( People v. Smithey (1999) 20 Cal.4th 936, 1007, 86 Cal.Rptr.2d 243, 978 P.2d 1171, quoting McPeters, supra, 2 Cal.4th at p. 1192, 9 Cal.Rptr.2d 834, 832 P.2d 146.) The jury was thus not reasonably likely to have [been] misled ... into believing that its consideration of mitigating circumstances somehow was limited. ( People v. Smithey, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 1007, 86 Cal.Rptr.2d 243, 978 P.2d 1171.)