Opinion ID: 1190343
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Defense Counsel's Penalty Phase Argument

Text: (20) Appellant contends his trial attorney was ineffective in arguing to the jury as follows: If you vote for the death penalty, particularly with the new Supreme Court that we have, he'll probably get it. He asserts his attorney's remark violated the rule of Caldwell v. Mississippi (1985) 472 U.S. 320 [86 L.Ed.2d 231, 105 S.Ct. 2633]. In Caldwell, the prosecutor advanced an argument suggesting the opposite, i.e., that the ultimate life-or-death decision rested with the appellate courts rather than the jury. The United States Supreme Court held the prosecutor's argument unfairly minimized the jury's sense of the importance of its role in capital sentencing. ( Id. at p. 325 [86 L.Ed.2d at p. 237].) Defense counsel's argument did not diminish the jury's sense of responsibility for its decision. To the contrary, it heightened that sense by emphasizing the death penalty would probably be carried out if the jury decided to impose it. In this regard, it added a realistic dimension to the court's instruction: It is now your duty to determine which of the two penalties, death or confinement in the state prison for life without possibility of parole, shall be imposed on defendant. (Italics added.) Counsel's statements regarding what the appellate courts might or might not do, whether emanating from the prosecution or from the defense, are necessarily founded on speculation and are irrelevant to the penalty determination process. (Cf. People v. Morris, supra, 53 Cal.3d 152, 181-183.) Once the jury is told a sentence of death or life in prison without possibility of parole means just that, such arguments are also unnecessary. Without approving defense counsel's argument in this case, we simply observe appellant was not prejudiced in this instance by his own attorney's argument; indeed, it served to aid his cause by emphasizing the realistic, life-and-death dimension to the jury's verdict.