In a death penalty case, in what circumstances will the Attorney General be found to have made an error in instructing the jury pursuant to the Briggs Instruction?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Myers, 233 Cal.Rptr. 264, 43 Cal.3d 250, 729 P.2d 698 (Cal. 1987):

The Attorney General concedes that, in light of Ramos, instructing the jury pursuant to the Briggs Instruction was error, but he contends that we should find the error harmless. The Attorney General, however, has cited no instance, and we are aware of none, in which this type of instructional error has been found nonprejudicial in a death penalty case, and in view of the very serious potential for prejudice emphasized in Ramos, we strongly doubt that we could ever confidently conclude that there was no reasonable possibility that this instruction improperly tainted the jury's decision-making process. (See, e.g., People v. Montiel (1985) 39 Cal.3d 910, 928, 218 Cal.Rptr. 572, 705 P.2d 1248.)

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