People v. Valcillo CA2/7

INTRODUCTION

A court must instruct the jury that it cannot convict a defendant based on his or her uncorroborated out-of-court statements alone. There is a bracketed portion of CALCRIM No. 301 that instructs the jury on this principle, but the trial court in this case did not give that portion of the instruction. The trial court, however, did give CALCRIM No. 359, which instructs the jury on the same principle of law. We conclude that the defendant forfeited his argument of instructional error, and that any such error was harmless. Under Penal Code section 667.61,1 if a jury convicts a defendant of an enumerated substantive crime, the jury must also determine whether the People have adequately proven the factual circumstances, including here that the victim was under 14 years old, that bring the defendant under the “One Strike” sentencing scheme. The verdict form in this case did not include a separate finding that the victim was under 14 years of age. However, one of the elements of the enumerated substantive offense of which the jury convicted the defendant was that the victim was under the age of 14. For this reason, the parties stipulated at trial that the verdict form did…