Opinion ID: 1236383
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 36

Heading: Standard for Imposition of Death.

Text: (31) The court gave CALJIC No. 8.84.2 (1986 rev.) on the standards for determining the penalty verdicts. Defendant objects to the following language in that instruction: To return a judgment of death, each of you must be persuaded that the aggravating factors are so substantial in comparison with the mitigating factors that it warrants death instead of life in prison without parole. Defendant complains that the instruction did not inform the jury that a necessary condition for imposition of the death penalty is a finding that aggravation outweighs mitigation rather than merely being so substantial in comparison. We rejected a similar challenge to this language in People v. Breaux, supra, 1 Cal.4th at pages 315-316. There, as in this case, the language in question was preceded by instructions that provide: The weighing of aggravating and mitigating factors does not mean a mere mechanical counting of factors on each side of an imaginary scale, or the arbitrary assignment of weights to any of them. You are free to assign whatever moral or sympathetic value you deem appropriate to each and all of the various factors you are permitted to consider. In weighing the various ... factors you determine under the relevant evidence which penalty is justified and appropriate by considering the totality of aggravating factors with the totality of the mitigating factors. The instructions given, in our view, were sufficient to inform the jury that it could return a death verdict only if the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances.