Opinion ID: 1399120
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Refusal to Require Jury to Make Findings Determining Whether Unadjudicated Crimes Were Proved Beyond Reasonable Doubt

Text: (32) Defense counsel argued that the jury should be instructed to deliberate and make findings as to each of the five unadjudicated crimes in evidence. The trial court disagreed, instructing that the determination whether to consider unadjudicated criminal activity as an aggravating circumstance is made individually by each juror. Defendant contends the court erred. We have rejected defendant's argument in the past, and he does not persuade us to depart from our prior decisions. Although defendant is entitled to a unanimous jury verdict in the final determination of penalty, the law does not require a unanimous finding as to any unadjudicated crime offered in aggravation. ( People v. Miranda (1987) 44 Cal.3d 57, 99 [241 Cal. Rptr. 594, 744 P.2d 1127].) The trial court correctly instructed that each juror must make an individual determination whether the prosecution proved other criminal activity beyond a reasonable doubt before considering that activity in aggravation. ( Ibid.; see People v. Robertson (1982) 33 Cal.3d 21, 53 [188 Cal. Rptr. 77, 655 P.2d 279].) Contrary to defendant's argument, neither the instruction nor the prosecutor's argument that it was unnecessary for the jurors to take a vote on each unadjudicated crime discouraged deliberation. Defendant argues that the jurors' tasks were complicated and difficult. Indeed, they were, as the deliberative processes in penalty trials not uncommonly are. But the jurors received the instructions necessary to ensure the reliability of their determination. Defendant contends he is denied meaningful appellate review of his sentence because we cannot know how the jury viewed the evidence. His argument proves too much; reviewing courts can never probe jurors' deliberations, but this inescapable fact does not vitiate the appellate process. (33) For the first time in his reply brief, defendant makes the argument that the refusal to require specific written findings on unadjudicated offenses in the penalty phase violated his right to equal protection of the laws. A defendant subject to the imposition of a sentence enhancement under section 12022.5 is entitled to such a finding, he argues, while a capital defendant against whom unadjudicated offenses are alleged is not. He fails to recognize that the capital defendant and the defendant subject to the section 12022.5 enhancement are not similarly situated. The latter receives enhanced punishment for his use of a firearm in the commission of a crime; the former receives punishment not for the unadjudicated crimes but for the murder with special circumstances of which he has been found guilty.