Opinion ID: 2519742
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Prosecutorial misconduct (penalty phase)

Text: We have already rejected defendant's claim that the prosecutor committed misconduct in his cross-examination of several defense witnesses, including defendant himself, at the guilt phase. Defendant also argues that the prosecutor committed misconduct in his arguments to the jury at the penalty phase. Defendant, however, made no objection at any point during the prosecutor's penalty phase arguments. Accordingly, he has waived any claim of prosecutorial misconduct on appeal. ( People v. Osband, supra, 13 Cal.4th at p. 717, 55 Cal.Rptr.2d 26, 919 P.2d 640.) Nor was defense counsel ineffective for failing to raise any objections since, as next explained, the prosecutor's arguments complained of, for the first time on appeal, were proper statements of the law and fair comment on the evidence. Defendant first argues the prosecutor misled the jury about the scope and nature of section 190.3, factor (a) by implying that factor (a) evidence could only be aggravating and not mitigaiting. A review of the prosecutor's argument regarding factor (a) reveals the prosecutor did not tell the jury, expressly or implicitly, that factor (a) evidence could never be mitigating, but only that the evidence of the crimes in this case was overwhelmingly aggravating. The prosecutor emphasized that defendant committed two murders and a kidnapping, aided and abetted his 15 year old son in the rape of his second wife, and attempted to kill a police officer to avoid arrest. He argued that Jones's murder by slow strangulation with a garrote applied from behind was a slow agonizing way of killing a person, which reflected a particular extreme type of depravity, an abandonment of human values, as did defendant's determination to involve his 15year-old son in the planned crime spree. We deem these fair comment on the evidence under factor (a), and not misconduct. Defendant claims the prosecutor misstated the law in his argument to the jury regarding section 190.3, factors (e), (f), (g), and (j) He urges, a reasonable juror would conclude that if the evidence did not show factors (e), (f), (g), and (j) to exist as mitigation, as the prosecutor stated, those factors must aggravate, as the prosecutor intended to imply. A close reading of this claim reveals defendant is merely restating his belief, in the context of a challenge to the prosecutor's arguments, that the law should require the various penalty factors under section 190.3 to be specifically defined for the jury as aggravating or mitigating. As we have explained, that is not the law. (See ante, 124 Cal.Rptr.2d at p. 418, 52 P.3d at p. 609; People v. Mayfield, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 806, 60 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 928 P.2d 485; People v. Raley, supra, 2 Cal.4th at p. 919, 8 Cal.Rptr.2d 678, 830 P.2d 712.) In each instance complained of, the prosecutor simply urged the jury to find there was no mitigating evidence under any of the four factors. Thus, the prosecutor argued the murder victims were not participants in defendant's homicidal conduct, nor did they consent to their own homicides (factor (e)); that defendant's crimes were not committed under circumstances which he reasonably believed to be a moral justification or extenuation for his conduct (factor (f)); that defendant did not act under extreme duress or under the substantial domination of another person (factor (g)); and that defendant was not an accomplice to the murders (with the exception of the rape of Rose V.), nor was his participation in their commission relatively minor (factor (j)). The prosecutor did not affirmatively tell the jury that the absence of mitigating evidence under any of these factors meant the factors should be viewed or counted as aggravating. As we explained in People v. Berryman, supra 6 Cal.4th at page 1095, 25 Cal.Rptr.2d 867, 864 P.2d 40, A reasonable juror would have understood and employed the language to mean nothing more objectionable than the tautology that the absence of mitigation is the absence of mitigation. Defendant acknowledges our observation in Berryman but urges it is illogical and wrong. We decline his invitation to reconsider it. Defendant also contends the prosecutor improperly argued to the jury that his kidnapping of Rose V. and his attempt to murder Officer Dunavent were aggravating circumstances of the crime under section 190.3, factor (a). Defendant essentially reasserts his claim that factor (a) is unconstitutionally vague because the jury is given no guidance regarding the time and space components of the `circumstances' of the crime. We reject defendant's suggestion that his kidnapping of Rose V. and his attempted murder of Officer Dunavent were not relevant and admissible under factor (a). The jury convicted him of those crimes as well as the two murders, and they were patently part of the circumstances of the crime (factor (a)) that the jury was entitled to consider in deliberation of penalty. Finally, we reject defendant's further argument that the prosecutor improperly sought to bolster a weak, circumstantial case by telling the jury defendant killed Jones for her van and to silence her because she knew of his plans. Defendant's use of the van to carry out his murderous plans was itself circumstantial evidence of his motive to kill Jones. His assertion on appeal that there was no evidence to support the prosecutor's argument that he may have killed Jones to silence her because she knew of his criminal plans is belied by his own trial testimony: he testified he had told Jones the entire truth about his plans. Moreover, the circumstance that defendant's written notes outlining his criminal intentions were among his personal effects stored in the van, together with his own testimony that his belongings appeared to have been searched when he discovered the van in the motel parking lot on the afternoon of October 31, 1986, supports an inference that Jones was murdered when she learned of defendant's true intentions. However Jones may have learned of defendant's criminal plans, the prosecutor's argument that defendant killed her to silence her was fair comment on the evidence and not misconduct.