Tag Archives: CC 766


CALCRIM Committee Acknowledges “Tension” Between Its Death Penalty Instructions and the Federal Constitution
October 8th, 2020

In the September 2020 revisions to the Bench Notes for CC 766 and CC 767 deleted the following optional sentence: “In making your decision about penalty, you must assume that the penalty you impose, death or life without the possibility of parole, will be carried out.” This sentence, which is based on the holding in […]


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Ring Claim Down But Not Out
April 28th, 2020

California Law Violates USSC Precedents Including Hurst v. Florida (2016) _U.S._ 136 S. Ct. 616 October 7th, 2018   it was suggested that counsel should request an instruction that the jury “could impose a death sentence only if it found that aggravating factors outweighed mitigating factors beyond a reasonable doubt,” based on Ring v. Arizona […]


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California Law Violates USSC Precedents Including Hurst v. Florida (2016) _U.S._ 136 S. Ct. 616
October 7th, 2018

The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments require any fact other than a prior conviction be proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt if the existence of that fact serves to increase the statutory maximum penalty for the crime. Cunningham v. California, 549 U.S. 270, 281-82, […]


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Impact of Defendant’s Inability to Remember His Commission of the Offense on Whether He Should be Executed.
September 6th, 2018

Madison v. Alabama (17-7505) will be argued in the United States Supreme Court on October 2, 2018.   Questions presented: “1. Consistent with the Eighth Amendment, and this Court’s decisions in Ford and Panetti, may the State execute a prisoner whose mental disability leaves him without memory of his commission of the capital offense? See […]


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