The People, Plaintiff and Respondent v. Magdaleno Salazar, Defendant and Appellant — Cuellar, J., Concurring

Summary

Justice Cuéllar concurred in rejecting the argument that the Eighth Amendment bars using a defendant's prior juvenile murder conviction as the sole basis for a special circumstance making a later murder death-eligible. He explained that the issue is close because juvenile offenders are constitutionally less culpable, but concluded that the statutory special circumstance sufficiently narrows death-penalty eligibility and that the defendant had not shown a constitutionally meaningful distinction between using the prior offense as an aggravating circumstance and as a special circumstance.