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People v. Kraft8/10/2000
abetting theory. Consequently, the error claimed by defendant did not occur.
6. Refusal To Give Defendant's Pinpoint Instruction on Corpus Delicti
Defendant contends the trial court erred in refusing his request for a special instruction specifically advising the jury that, before it could rely on the so-called death list, exhibit No. 165, as evidence of any of the charged offenses, it must first find a corpus delicti for that offense. The trial court concluded the requested instruction improperly focused the jury's attention on a particular piece of evidence. The trial court did, however, give a different instruction the defense requested, one that told the jury " n the present case, [the corpus delicti rule] applies to every statement of the defendant. [ ] If you find that any tape recorded, written, or oral statement made by the defendant is either an admission or a confession, you may not consider that statement at all to prove the elements of any of the crimes charged, unless you have first determined that there is a corpus delicti for that crime. [ ] In other words, you may not rely at all on any statement of the defendant's to establish the corpus delicti of any crime charged." The court also instructed the jury with CALJIC No. 2.72, setting forth the corpus delicti rule.
We conclude the trial court did not err in refusing to give the instruction specifically referring to the list. The instruction was, as the trial court reasoned, argumentative, in that it focused the jury's attention on a particular piece of evidence. (People v. Wright, supra, 45 Cal.3d at p. 1137.) Further, even if the ruling could be said to be erroneous, defendant suffered no prejudice, as the substance of the refused instruction was conveyed through the special instruction the trial court did give. The jury could have been under no misunderstanding regarding the use it could properly make of the list, and it is not reasonably probable defendant would have obtained a more favorable result had the requested instruction been given. (People v. Watson, supra, 46 Cal.2d at p. 836.)
D. Jury Issues
1. Trial Court's Refusal To Augment Juror Fees
Defendant contends the trial court's denial of his motion for an order directing Orange County to pay jurors selected to serve in this case fees exceeding the statutory minimum (former Pen. Code, § 1143, repealed by Stats. 1988, ch. 1245, § 44, p. 4155; see now Code Civ. Proc., § 215) denied him due process of law and a fair trial comporting with the heightened reliability requirement for death judgments pursuant to the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal Constitution. The latter requirement, he argues, imposed on the trial court a duty to ensure a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community and not excluding those who would be subjected to financial hardship by being forced to sit during such a lengthy trial. Defendant observes that many prospective jurors were excused for financial hardship. He acknowledges we have held that excusals of potential jurors for financial hardship do not violate the fair cross-section requirement (People v. Medina (1995) 11 Cal.4th 694, 747) and that due process does not require augmentation of the statutory juror compensation (People v. DeSantis (1992) 2 Cal.4th 1198, 1215-1216), but he contends his case is different due to the length and complexity of his trial.
Granted that the length of this trial (13 months from jury selection to penalty verdict) and number of victims (16 in the guilt phase, eight others in the penalty phase) distinguish defendant's case from other capital cases in which this claim has been raised, defendant nevertheless fails t
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