Court Opinion

ID: 9536086
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:54:34.98478+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:26.915928
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent.
Realistically viewed, the instruction forbidding the jury to be governed by “mere sentiment, conjecture, sympathy, passion, prejudice, public opin*620ion or public feeling” is, on balance, favorable to the defendant. Of the various influences proscribed, “sentiment” is vague and “conjecture” is neutral, but “passion, prejudice, public opinion or public feeling” are most often hostile to the defendant. I doubt, for example, that the majority would sanction an instruction which affirmatively authorized the jury to be governed by such “passion, prejudice, public opinion or public feeling.” This leaves “sympathy” as the majority’s main concern. But even that emotion, I submit is more likely to be evoked in favor of the innocent victim and his family than of the criminal whom the jury has convicted of the offense.
This court has nevertheless condemned the use of the quoted instruction in penalty trials (People v. Stanworth (1969) 71 Cal.2d 820, 842 [80 Cal.Rptr. 49, 457 P.2d 889]; People v. Vaughn (1969) 71 Cal.2d 406, 422 [78 Cal.Rptr. 186, 455 P.2d 122], and cases cited), although we have not hitherto held the error prejudicial. In the case at bar, however a significant additional element is present. Here the prosecution introduced a substantial body of evidence tending to prove various other crimes committed by defendant, and the jury were therefore called upon to decide issues of guilt as well as penalty—i.e., whether defendant was guilty of each of the other crimes in question. On an issue of guilt, we have recognized, the challenged instruction is proper. (People v. Polk (1965) 63 Cal.2d 443, 451 [47 Cal.Rptr. 1, 406 P.2d 641].) It follows that the trial court’s only failing in this regard was in not limiting the jury’s application of this instruction to their deliberations on defendant’s guilt of the other crimes.1 I do not share the majority’s lack of confidence in the ability of our trial courts to explain, and the juries to understand, such a limitation. Indeed, our juries are daily called upon to perform far more difficult mental tasks, such as limiting their consideration of a prior inconsistent statement of a witness to its impeachment value alone. (See People v. Johnson (1968) 68 Cal.2d 646 [68 Cal.Rptr. 599, 441 P.2d 111].)
On the record before us, I cannot find that the omission of a limiting instruction constitutes “substantial error” requiring reversal under the rule of People v. Hines (1964) 61 Cal.2d 164, 169 [37 Cal.Rptr. 622, 390 P.2d 398], This was not an ordinary penalty trial, at which only the Morse instruction and one or two others were given. Here the challenged language was part of a lengthy opening instruction on the duties of the jurors. (See CALJIC No. 1 et seq.) It was followed by six further instruc*621tions on general matters, by no less than 21 instructions defining the elements of the various other crimes, and by six instructions defining murder, malice, deliberation and premeditation, and the effect of evidence of intoxication. Then and only then were the jury instructed on their powers and responsibilities in fixing the penalty. The latter instruction (CALJIC No. 306.1 (New)) correctly informed the jury that “Beyond prescribing the two alternative penalties, the law itself provides no standard for the guidance of the jury in the selection of the penalty, but, rather, commits the whole matter of determining which of the two penalties shall be fixed to the judgment, conscience and absolute discretion of the jury,” and that “Notwithstanding facts, if any, proved in mitigation or aggravation, in determining which punishment shall be inflicted, you are entirely free to act according to your own judgment, conscience and absolute discretion.” (Italics added.) It is true that in People v. Vaughn (1969) supra, 71 Cal.2d 406, 422, we declined to accept the argument that the latter instruction, without more, cures the error. But the instructions must always be viewed as a whole, and on the present record the jury could not reasonably have believed that this clear and forceful declaration of their discretion in the choice of penalty was limited or qualified in any way by some general introductory remarks spoken 33 instructions earlier.
Two separate juries have heard the evidence and called for the extreme penalty in this case. We reversed before (66 Cal.2d 524) because of asserted prejudicial misconduct of the prosecutor. Now the majority seize upon one word in one instruction to reverse as to penalty a second time. The result is a heavy burden upon the expeditious administration of criminal justice. I am persuaded there is wholly inadequate justification under the “miscarriage of justice” clause of the Constitution (Cal. Const., art. VI, § 13) to require yet another penalty trial.
I would affirm the judgment.
McComb, J., and Burke, J., concurred.
Respondent’s petition for a rehearing was denied February 18, 1970. McComb, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

Although the defendants’ guilt of other crimes was also at issue in the Polk penalty trial, it was necessary to reverse the judgment on separate grounds and we did not draw the conclusion just stated.