Opinion ID: 1130099
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Unitary Jury.

Text: (18) Defendant argues that the statutory scheme is inherently flawed under the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution insofar as it does not require separate juries at the guilt and penalty phases where prior murder convictions are used as special circumstances and as aggravating factors at sentencing. (See § 190.4, subd. (c) [same jury shall decide guilt, special circumstances, and penalty absent showing of good cause].) Defendant suggests that even where, as here, evidence of a defendant's prior murders is not introduced at the guilt phase, a separate penalty jury is necessary to (1) permit full voir dire concerning the potential impact of prior murders on jurors who sit at the penalty phase, and (2) ensure that jurors who determine guilt are not exposed to the prior murders during voir dire. Defendant claims that because the single-jury procedure requires the defense to choose between these alternatives, it violates constitutional guarantees to a fair trial, impartial jury, and reliable death judgment. The claim fails for reasons we have previously explained. In almost every capital trial, regardless of the special circumstances alleged, there will be evidence introduced [in aggravation] at the penalty phase ... which would otherwise be irrelevant or inadmissible in the determination of guilt. Defense counsel are routinely faced with difficult tactical decisions in having to fashion voir dire inquiries that probe for possible penalty phase biases regarding such evidence, while stopping short of revealing information otherwise prejudicial and excludable in the guilt phase. Certainly such will almost always be the case where the special circumstance alleged is a prior murder or murders. ( People v. Nicolaus, supra, 54 Cal.3d 551, 573.) Defendant cites no authority for the proposition that a death penalty scheme is constitutionally invalid unless it presents the defense with no difficult tactical choices in conducting voir dire or persuading jurors to reject a death sentence. (See People v. Pride (1992) 3 Cal.4th 195, 252 [10 Cal. Rptr.2d 636, 833 P.2d 643] [separate juries not required to prevent penalty jury from blam[ing] the defense for withholding evidence of prior convictions and other violent crimes at guilt phase]; People v. Taylor, supra, 52 Cal.3d 719, 737-738 [separate juries not required to prevent penalty jury from questioning credibility of mental defense where defendant presented no evidence at guilt phase].) As before, we decline to invalidate the scheme simply because it establishes a single-jury procedure that was followed here.