Is a temporary judge required to conduct a capital trial?

A judge, whether temporary or not, is required to adjudicate many critical trial issues including what evidence will be admitted, what objections are meritorious, what instructions are proper, and ultimately what sentence should be pronounced. In a capital case the trial judge has the special duty, whenever the jury returns a verdict of death, to independently review and weigh the evidence of aggravating and mitigating factors and then pronounce sentence. (Pen.Code, 190.4, subd. (e).) Thus the decision whether to stipulate to trial before a commissioner may very well involve the [54 Cal.3d 103] substantive rights of the accused. (See Coleman v. McCormick (9th Cir.1989) 874 F.2d 1280, 1287 (en banc) ["It is one thing to accept a judge for the purpose of conducting a fair trial, and quite another to accept that judge not only to conduct the trial but to become the sole decisionmaker on the question of life or death."].)