What is the current state of the law on the death penalty?

involved the first Kansas v. Marsh requirement.⁹ (Ring, supra, 536 U.S. at p. 609, 122 S.Ct. 2428.) Yet, [t]he federal Constitution does not require the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the prosecution proved each aggravating factor, that the circumstances in aggravation outweigh those in mitigation, or that death is the appropriate penalty. (People v. Hawthorne (1992) 4 Cal.4th 43, 79, 14 Cal.Rptr.2d 133, 841 P.2d 118.)

[U]nder the California death penalty scheme, once the defendant has been convicted of first degree murder and one or more special circumstances has been found true beyond a reasonable doubt, death is no more than the prescribed statutory maximum for the offense ; the only alternative is life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. [Citation.] Thus, in the penalty phase, the jury merely weighs the factors enumerated in section 190.3 and determines whether a defendant eligible for the death penalty should in fact receive that sentence. (Tuilaepa v. California (1994) 512 U.S. 967, 972 [114 S.Ct. 2630, 129 L.Ed.2d 750].) No single factor therefore determines which penaltydeath or [LWOP]is appropriate. [] [T]he penalty phase determination is inherently moral and normative, not factual.... [Citation.] Because

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