Is a failure to give unanimity instruction a federal constitutional error?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Aguilar, D055775 (Cal. App. 2011):

Assuming a unanimity instruction should have been given, the error was not prejudicial even under the stricter harmless beyond a reasonable doubt standard for federal constitutional error. (See People v. Wolfe (2003) 114 Cal.App.4th 177, 185-188 [discussing split of opinion concerning whether failure to give unanimity instruction is of federal constitutional dimension].) Under this standard, the "failure to give a unanimity

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instruction may be harmless error if we can conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that all jurors must have unanimously agreed on the act(s) constituting the offense." (People v. Norman (2007) 157 Cal.App.4th 460, 466.)

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