California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Sheldon, 258 Cal.Rptr. 242, 48 Cal.3d 935, 771 P.2d 1330 (Cal. 1989):
As we stated in People v. Hendricks (1988) 44 Cal.3d 635, 655, 244 Cal.Rptr. 181, 749 P.2d 836, "[w]e see no impropriety in a prosecutor urging that the jurors 'follow the law' and base their penalty decision on a weighing of the applicable factors, so long as it is understood that inherent in the weighing process itself is the determination of 'appropriateness'.... As previously noted, the jury in the present case fully understood that it could assign whatever weight it deemed appropriate to the various aggravating and mitigating factors, and that its penalty decision should be based on all the evidence in the case."
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