Opinion ID: 1300630
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Erroneous penalty instructions under 1978 law.

Text: In April 1978, when defendant's crimes occurred, the death penalty statute passed by the Legislature in 1977 (the 1977 law) was still in effect. (Stats. 1977, ch. 316, งง 1-26, pp. 1255-1266.) The Briggs death penalty initiative (the 1978 law) became effective thereafter, on November 8, 1978. As we noted in Easley, supra, 34 Cal.3d 858, the 1978 law contains sentencing language different from the 1977 version and is prospective only. (34 Cal.3d at p. 883.) (10) Defendant correctly observes that, under Easley, the trial court therefore erred when it delivered sentencing instructions modeled on the 1978 law, rather than its 1977 counterpart. ( Id., at p. 881; see CALJIC Nos. 8.84.1, 8.84.2 (1979 rev.).) Defendant urges that this was fundamental error requiring reversal, because his trial and sentence under the harsher 1978 law violated his rights under the ex post facto clause. He further contends the erroneous 1978-law instructions were manifestly less favorable to him in explaining to the jury the scope of its sentencing responsibility, creating an unacceptable danger the jury was misled. We cannot agree. The 1978 law, as interpreted by this court since Easley, does not operate less favorably to him than the 1977 version. Moreover, there appears no reasonable possibility the 1978-law instructions misled this jury about the relevant mitigating evidence or the nature of its sentencing responsibilities under the 1977 law. We therefore find no constitutional violation and no basis for reversal. The 1977 law enumerated 10 sentencing factors, then provided that the trier of fact shall consider, take into account and be guided by the aggravating and mitigating circumstances referred to in this section, and shall determine whether the penalty shall be death or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. (Former ง 190.3, italics added.) The 1978 law also provides that the trier of fact shall consider, take into account, and be guided by similar enumerated factors. However, the 1978 language states that the fact finder shall then impose a death sentence if it concludes aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating, and shall impose a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole if it concludes mitigating circumstances outweigh aggravating. (ง 190.3.) As defendant points out, we found reversible error in Easley, supra, when 1978-law instructions were given by mistake in a 1977-law trial. In that relatively early case, we reasoned that the two laws were prejudicially dissimilar, in that the 1977 statute, unlike its 1978 successor, allowed the jury to decide death was inappropriate and grant mercy even if aggravation outweighed mitigation. (34 Cal.3d at pp. 883-884.) However, we have since made clear that the 1978 statute provides a range of sentencing discretion no less favorable to a defendant than its 1977 counterpart. Easley itself minimized any distinction between the consideration of sentencing factors described in the 1977 law and the weighing of factors required by the 1978 law. [I]n that respect, the Easley majority reasoned, there may well be no significant difference between the two provisions.... (34 Cal.3d at p. 884, fn. 19.) Rather, Easley suggested that the statutes diverged only after the jury had considered or weighed the factors. Under Easley's construction, the 1978 law's weighing process dictated the penalty, while a 1977-law jury could spare the defendant's life regardless of its view of the aggravation-mitigation balance. (34 Cal.3d at p. 884, fn. 19.) But even this distinction was questionable, the Easley majority implied, since [t]heoretically, if a jury were to interpret the 1978 law to mean that aggravating factors `outweigh' mitigating factors only when it believes that death is the appropriate sentence, the 1978 and 1977 provisions would be essentially indistinguishable.... ( Id., at p. 882, fn. 15.) In Boyd, supra, 38 Cal.3d 762, we again suggested a crucial difference in the sentencing processes required by the two statutes. But the distinction stressed in Boyd is not helpful to defendant's claim here. We there reasoned that the 1977 law, by presenting the various sentencing factors only as guidance in the penalty determination, impliedly left the sentencer free to consider any other [i.e., nonstatutory] matter it deemed relevant in aggravation of penalty. (See also Murtishaw I, supra, 29 Cal.3d at pp. 777-778.) By contrast, Boyd proposed, the 1978 law, by requiring the sentencer to decide the appropriateness of the death penalty by a process of weighing the specific factors listed in the statute, ... necessarily implied that [aggravating] matters not within the statutory list are irrelevant and may not be considered. (38 Cal.3d at p. 773, italics added.) [10] In this respect, therefore, the 1978 law is more favorable to a capital penalty defendant than its predecessor. [11] Finally, in Brown I, 40 Cal.3d 512, we confronted a claim that the 1978 law was unconstitutional because, in certain circumstances, it imposed a mandatory death sentence. We disagreed and upheld the statute, rejecting any notion โ such as that suggested in Easley โ that the 1978 law (unlike the 1977 version) substitutes a mechanical and arbitrary process for the sentencer's normative discretion in deciding the appropriate penalty. In Brown I, we conceded that a death penalty statute would [not] pass [constitutional] muster if it required jurors to render a death verdict on the basis of some arithmetical formula, or if it forced them to impose death on any basis other than their own judgment that such a verdict was appropriate under all the facts and circumstances of the individual case. [Fn. omitted.] (40 Cal.3d at p. 540.) Construing the 1978 initiative to avoid such constitutional problems, we explained that the statute should not be understood to require any juror to vote for the death penalty unless, upon completion of the `weighing' process, he decides that death is the appropriate penalty under all the circumstances. Thus the jury, by weighing the various factors, simply determines under the relevant evidence which penalty is appropriate in the particular case. [Fn. omitted.] (P. 541, italics added.) A 1978-law jury may not approach this task arbitrarily or mechanically. Rather, each juror must assign whatever moral or sympathetic value he deems appropriate to the relevant sentencing factors, singly and in combination. He must believe aggravation is so relatively great, and mitigation so comparatively minor, that the defendant deserves death rather than society's next most serious punishment, life in prison without parole. (40 Cal.3d at pp. 540-542, & fn. 13, 545, fn. 19.) This analysis leaves a 1978-law sentencer with the same range of potential mitigating evidence and the same broad power of leniency and mercy afforded a 1977-law jury. (See People v. Rodriguez (1986) 42 Cal.3d 730, 779 [230 Cal. Rptr. 667, 726 P.2d 113].) Indeed, the majority in Brown I expressly noted that its analysis left only one essential distinction between the 1977 and 1978 schemes: the limitation on relevant aggravating evidence under the 1978 law. (40 Cal.3d at p. 544.) Thus, we may easily reject defendant's ex post facto claim. He was not tried and sentenced under a less favorable law than that in effect when he committed the murders. [12] (11) Defendant nonetheless contends there was reversible prejudice, since the 1978-law instructions erroneously given in his case were more confusing and burdensome on the issue of sentencing discretion than the 1977-law instructions to which he was entitled. In Brown I, we acknowledged there was room for some confusion when a 1978-law jury is instructed in that statute's shall/outweigh language without further explanation. We directed that additional explanatory instructions be given in future trials under the 1978 law. We refrained from holding that the omission of explanatory instructions in pre- Brown 1978-law trials was error. Nonetheless, we stated we would examine each such case on its merits to determine whether, under all the particular circumstances, the sentencer may have been misled to defendant's prejudice about the scope of its sentencing discretion under the 1978 law. (40 Cal.3d at p. 544, fn. 17.) We have since applied this case-by-case test to a number of pre- Brown 1978-law trials. In each instance, we closely examine the instructions in the context of counsels' arguments to determine whether reasonable jurors might have received a mistaken view of their responsibilities. (E.g., People v. Babbitt (1988) 45 Cal.3d 660, 713-715 [248 Cal. Rptr. 69, 755 P.2d 253]; People v. Williams (1988) 44 Cal.3d 1127, 1148-1149 [245 Cal. Rptr. 635, 751 P.2d 901]; People v. Miranda (1987) 44 Cal.3d 57, 103-104 [241 Cal. Rptr. 594, 744 P.2d 1127]; Allen, supra, 42 Cal.3d at pp. 1276-1280.) The fact that it was technical error to give 1978-law instructions in this 1977-law case does not compel a different approach. Trial error, including misdirection of the jury, is not reversible unless it actually produced a miscarriage of justice. (Cal. Const., art. VI, ง 13.) We scrutinize the penalty phase of capital trials with considerable care, but even plain error must be deemed harmless when there is no reasonable possibility it affected the penalty verdict. ( People v. Brown (1988) 46 Cal.3d 432, 447-449 [250 Cal. Rptr. 604, 758 P.2d 1135].) If the sentencer's discretion under the 1978 law, properly construed, is essentially the same as under the 1977 law, it is no more inherently confusing or prejudicial to give 1978-law sentencing instructions in a 1977-law case than in a 1978-law case. The analysis whether the jury may have been misled must be the same in both instances. Defendant emphasizes our suggestion in Brown I that even if Easley had exaggerated differences between the two statutes, the Easley result was supportable because the 1978 instruction given [in that case] was prejudicial when compared to its 1977 counterpart.... (40 Cal.3d at p. 544, fn. 16, italics in original.) This dictum, made without extensive analysis, was intended only to suggest that we could find the 1978 law similar to the 1977 version, and thus constitutional, without calling into question the penalty reversal in Easley. [13] In Brown I, this court clearly disapproved Easley 's assumption that the two laws offer substantially disparate sentencing discretion. We have since made clear that confusion between 1978- and 1977-law instructions does not warrant reversal where it is clear any prejudice was not substantial. ( Rodriguez, supra, 42 Cal.3d at pp. 783-784; see also People v. Phillips (1985) 41 Cal.3d 29, 59-60 [222 Cal. Rptr. 127, 711 P.2d 423].) Since any potential ambiguities in the 1978-law instructions do not necessarily warrant reversal in a 1978-law case, we now find no logical basis for the notion that the giving of 1978-law instructions in a 1977-law case is inherently reversible. To the extent Brown I and Easley suggested otherwise, we must retreat from their implications. [14] Defendant invokes the rule that equivocal instructions on a basic issue require reversal in a criminal case, especially where it is impossible to tell if the verdict rests on a constitutionally infirm interpretation of the instructions. (Citing, e.g., Yates v. United States (1957) 354 U.S. 298, 312 [1 L.Ed.2d 1356, 1371-1372, 77 S.Ct. 1064]; Bollenbach v. United States (1946) 326 U.S. 607, 613 [90 L.Ed. 350, 354-355, 66 S.Ct. 402]; Stromberg v. California (1931) 283 U.S. 359, 368 [75 L.Ed. 1117, 1122-1123, 51 S.Ct. 532, 73 A.L.R. 1484].) In particular, he urges that instructions in the bare shall/outweigh language of the 1978 statute violate the Eighth Amendment because they may mislead a reasonable jury about the scope of its constitutional capital sentencing authority. As Brown I and its progeny suggest, however, the 1978-law instructions are potentially confusing only in particular circumstances. We must therefore uphold the judgment if satisfied from the individual facts that a reasonable jury could not have been led astray. (See also California v. Brown, supra, 479 U.S. at pp. 545-546 [93 L.Ed.2d at pp. 942-943] [conc. opn. of O'Connor, J.]; People v. Brown (1988) 45 Cal.3d 1247, 1256-1258 [248 Cal. Rptr. 817, 756 P.2d 204].) We conclude the instant jury cannot have have been misled about the scope of its sentencing responsibility. As noted, the jury received no instructions beyond the bare language of the 1978 statute. However, both counsel's arguments made clear that the jury was to weigh the various sentencing factors as it chose and must ultimately decide for itself which penalty defendant deserved under all the circumstances. (See People v. Myers (1987) 43 Cal.3d 250, 274-275 [233 Cal. Rptr. 264, 729 P.2d 698]; Allen, supra, 42 Cal.3d at pp. 1276-1277.) The bulk of both arguments was devoted to discussing the circumstances of the capital crime (ง 190.3, factor (a); see also former ง 190.3, factor (a)) and attacking opposing expert witnesses. Defense counsel asserted that the desert homicides arose from a short-lived psychomotor seizure. The seizure, counsel argued, was caused by organic brain damage, dehydration, alcohol intoxication, and a PCP-induced flashback during which defendant believed the student filmmakers were shooting at him. The prosecutor maintained that defendant, perhaps fortified by alcohol, had committed three brutal, premeditated murders. In the prosecutor's view, defendant acted out of frustration over his life and the day's events, a need for ego gratification, and a desire to steal the victims' car without leaving witnesses. At the outset, the prosecutor told the penalty jurors that you are now in the position of a judge who is going to decide is this defendant โ are the crimes sufficiently aggravating to justify the death penalty.... The prosecutor stressed that each juror bore personal responsibility for applying his own weigh[ing] system to the evidence. As the prosecutor noted,  somehow you have to decide what kind of weight you are going to give to the lives of these four people against any of the mitigating factors which you believe.... [ถ] ... Now, I don't want, if you do it individually, it's up to you, or whether you decide on a number, how you decided, that's up to you. Somehow to say how much weight am I going to give to [each victim and the way he or she was killed]. Now that's a very serious and heavy obligation, .... (Italics added.) At this stage, the prosecutor did make brief reference to a scale on which he had organized his view of the aggravating and mitigating factors. However, he had previously admonished the jury that his argument was merely comment on the evidence, and was not itself evidence; now he cautioned that this scale is obviously editorial comment, and is [merely] a comment on the state of the evidence. The prosecutor returned to his balance of justice theme at the conclusion of his argument. He urged that defendant's relative youth and prior nonviolence were entitled to little weight against the viciousness of the murders. Personal problems, he suggested, do not excuse homicide. The prosecutor emphasized that nobody forced defendant to abuse drugs and alcohol, make poor decisions in his personal life, and get into trouble at work. The jurors, said the prosecutor, must send [the] message that we are responsible for our own lives. Indeed, the prosecutor suggested, there was another reason why defendant's personal difficulties should not be deemed mitigating; were defendant imprisoned rather than executed, he would live in security, free of his domestic and employment problems. This, the prosecutor asserted, was not an honest balance for defendant's crimes. The prosecutor concluded by stating that [w]hat we ask from you, ladies and gentlemen, is just what the symbol of justice shows: holding the scale, balancing the justice. Without objection, defense counsel further stressed the jury's broad power and duty. He emphasized that the mere fact of the crimes did not require death; otherwise, there would be no penalty trial. Counsel pointed out that defendant's youth, and his lack of prior violence or felonies, were important mitigating factors. He reminded the jurors they could consider their observations of defendant and the testimony of his relatives. Counsel conceded that defendant's crimes could not be excused but argued that defendant had redeeming qualities and begged the jury not to kill him. Counsel offered a detailed description of the torments of life imprisonment โ unbelievably a severe punishment โ and urged that it was not soft to reject death. In conclusion, counsel declared that he had long carried the heavy burden of defendant's life but was now transferring that burden to the jury. Under these circumstances, the jurors must reasonably have understood they were to decide, by weighing all the relevant evidence, which of the two available penalties they deemed just and appropriate. This was their obligation under both the 1977 and 1978 death penalty laws. The instructional error thus caused no prejudice warranting reversal.