What is the effect of the Governor's commutation power on a death penalty sentence?

Some jurors may have been concerned that the primary actor in a conspiracy that resulted in two murders could eventually go free were they to vote for life imprisonment instead of death. By simply rereading CALJIC No. 8.84 the same instruction already provided to the jury the trial court failed to clarify the legal issue that concerned the jury and thus ran the risk that some jurors, erroneously believing release on parole was a possibility, voted to impose the death penalty as a way of ensuring defendant would never be released to kill again. A death penalty verdict reached under such circumstances may implicate a defendant's right to due process of law. (See Simmons v. South Carolina (1994) 512 U.S. 154, 162, 114 S.Ct. 2187, 129 L.Ed.2d 133 (plur.opn.) [due process violated when state imposes death sentence based in part on the defendant's future dangerousness when jury not informed the alternative penalty of life imprisonment was without parole].)

Providing the jury with a more complete picture of the legal effect of a sentence of life without the possibility of parole, admittedly, may encourage it to speculate on matters irrelevant to its penalty decision. We faced a similar situation in People v. Ramos (1984) 37 Cal.3d 136, 207 Cal.Rptr. 800, 689 P.2d 430, concerning whether a trial judge in a capital trial should inform the jury of the Governor's commutation power. We concluded: "When the jury raises the commutation issue itself either during voir dire or in a question posed to the court during deliberations the matter obviously cannot be avoided and is probably best handled by a short statement indicating that the Governor's commutation power applies to both sentences but emphasizing that it would be a violation of the juror's duty to consider the possibility of such commutation in determining the appropriate sentence." (Id. at p. 159, fn. 12, 207 Cal.Rptr. 800, 689 P.2d 430.)