High Court Declines to Reconsider One of Its Rare Death Penalty Affirmations

The state Supreme Court refused Friday to reconsider a decision in December in which it affirmed a death sentence for only the fourth time since capital punishment was reinstated in California a decade ago.

In a brief order, the justices, without dissent, rejected a rehearing petition filed on behalf of Clarence Ray Allen, 56, who was convicted of arranging the murder of three persons while he was a prisoner serving a life term for a previous murder.

While the action Friday moved Allen one step closer to the gas chamber, he still may file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court and, if that petition is denied, make additional appeals in state and federal courts on issues not already decided. That process would likely take at least two years.

Affirmations Rare

In the 68 capital cases reviewed by the court since the Legislature voted in 1977 to restore the death penalty, the justices have affirmed the capital sentences of only four convicted murderers--Allen, Robert Alton Harris, Earl Lloyd Jackson and Stevie Lamar Fields.

Harris, Jackson and Fields now are continuing to contest their sentences in further proceedings in state and federal courts.

Allen’s death sentence was upheld in a 4-3 decision issued by the state Supreme Court on Dec. 31, with Justices Stanley Mosk, Joseph R. Grodin, Malcolm M. Lucas and Edward A. Panelli in the majority and Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird and Justices Cruz Reynoso and Allen E. Broussard dissenting.

Bird, Reynoso and Grodin were defeated by the voters in the November election and left office Jan. 5. Their successors have not yet been named by Gov. George Deukmejian.

Arranged Killing of 3

Allen, at one time the leader of a crime ring in the San Joaquin Valley, was sentenced to death for arranging the 1980 shotgun slayings of three Fresno grocery store employees, including one man who had testified against him in the 1977 murder case for which he had been sent to prison.

According to court records, Allen hired a fellow prisoner, Billy Ray Hamilton, to commit the three killings.

Hamilton was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death for the murders but his sentence was overturned by the court in 1985. Then the court decided to reconsider that decision and the Hamilton case is now scheduled to be reheard by the justices in April.

In their December ruling in the Allen case, the justices, in an opinion written by Grodin, rejected contentions by the defendant that all death sentences must be reviewed to ensure that they are proportionate to other sentences issued for similar crimes.

Reject Other Grounds

The court also refused to overturn the sentence on the asserted grounds that jurors had been improperly instructed that they must impose the death penalty if aggravating factors outweigh mitigating factors in the case. Jurors had been made aware that they need not mechanically weigh such factors, the court said.