Opinion ID: 1277687
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Religious Sanction for the Death Penalty

Text: Stating that he wanted to alleviate the jury's pang of conscience, the prosecutor read various passages from the Bible apparently sanctioning capital punishment, including Exodus, chapter 21, verse 12, which states, He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death. As we have recently reiterated, an appeal to religious authority in support of the death penalty is improper because it tends to diminish the jury's personal sense of responsibility for the verdict. [Citations.] Such argument also carries the potential the jury will believe a higher law should be applied and ignore the trial court's instructions. ( People v. Hill (1998) 17 Cal.4th 800, 836-837, 72 Cal. Rptr.2d 656, 952 P.2d 673.) We note that the prosecutor was not responding to a defense argument invoking religious authority. ( Id., at p. 837, 72 Cal.Rptr.2d 656, 952 P.2d 673.) Nor was he referring to religious authority in order exhort the jury not to resort to religious canons to decide the appropriate penalty. ( People v. Arias, supra, 13 Cal.4th at p. 180, 51 Cal.Rptr.2d 770, 913 P.2d 980.) On the contrary, the prosecutor was using biblical references in part to assuage the jury's sense of personal responsibility. Moreover, the prosecutor then asked the jury to imagine defendant's meeting in some supposed afterlife with the two children whom he murdered, who will be whole and will look at the [defendant] and before the final witnesses ... will say but two words, two words. `Why, Moochie.' This otherworldly account of retribution, following as it did the biblical approval of the death penalty, further reinforces the notion that some higher law favors or requires the death penalty against defendant. The fostering of this notion has no place at the penalty phase of a capital trial. ( People v. Hill, supra, 17 Cal.4th at p. 837, 72 Cal.Rptr.2d 656, 952 P.2d 673.) Nonetheless, the prosecutor's misconduct in this instance was not prejudicial. Most of his argument was taken up with a discussion of the murders that defendant committed, as well as his numerous violent prior offenses, both charged and uncharged, and the lack of mitigation. Toward the conclusion of his argument the prosecutor stated: Now you all swore to me' personally in [the] jury selection process ... that each of you, if you found that the aggravating circumstances substantially outweighed the mitigating circumstances, which we have absolutely shown here to be true, ... could return a death penalty verdict, and you 12 are the ones to make this choice. Moreover, defense's closing argument adequately apprised the jury of its responsibility under California law. Given the magnitude of penalty phase evidence against defendant, the relatively minor place of the religious argument in the closing argument as a whole, and the balancing effect of the defense in closing argument, there is no reasonable possibility that the jury would have chosen the lesser verdict if it had not heard the prosecution's religious references. ( People v. Brown (1988) 46 Cal.3d 432, 446-448, 250 Cal.Rptr. 604, 758 P.2d 1135.) It was also harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. ( Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705.)