Appellant, William Satele, Reply Brief - California Courts - State of ...

3. Appellant's Did Not Forfeit His Constitutional Claims By Inaction In The
Trial Court
Respondent contends that because appellant failed to assert his
constitutional claims below he has waived them. (RB at p. 163.) However, the
misinstruction in issue here is ofthe kind that requires no trial court action on the
part ofthe defendant to preserve it. As explained above (ante, at p. 29), is the sua
sponte duty of the trial court to give correct instructions on the elements of an
offense or enhancement allegation. Accordingly, an erroneous instruction
affecting a defendant's substantial rights require no objection or other trial court
action by the defendant to preserve the issue for appeal. In addition, no trial court
action is required by the defendant for preservation purposes when the new
arguments do not invoke facts or legal standards different from those the trial
court itself was asked to apply, but merely assert that the trial court's act or
omission, insofar as wrong for the reasons actually presented to that court, had the
additional legal consequence of violating the Constitution. (People v. Boyer,
supra, 38 Cal.4th 412,441 fn. 17; People v. Wilson, supra, 43 Cal.4th 1, 13-14 fn.
3.)
The Due Process Clause requires that a court must instruct the jury that the
state bears the burden of proving each element of the crime beyond a reasonable
doubt and that the court must state each of those elements to the jury. (United
States v. Gaudin (1995) 515 U.S. 506, 509-510; Evenchyk v. Stewart (9th Cir.
2003) 340 F.3d 933-939; In re Winship (1970) 397 U.S. 358, 363; Sullivan v.
Louisiana (1993) 508 U.S. 275, 277-278; Carella v. California (1989) 491 U.S.
263, 265) Omission of an element from an instruction is federal due process error
and compels reversal unless the beneficiary ofthe error can show the error to have
been harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. (Ibid.)
Similarly, to find the facts necessary for a sentence enhancement to be true
beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury must be properly instructed on the elements of
the enhancement. Thus, this court has held that the trial court must instruct on
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