Court Refuses to Reconsider Conviction in Murder Case

The state Supreme Court refused Thursday to reconsider a decision issued under former Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird that upheld the conviction but overturned the death sentence imposed on the defendant in a Glendora murder case.

In a brief order, the court left intact a ruling made Jan. 2 in the case of Venson Lane Myers, who had been found guilty and sentenced to death in the killing of a liquor store customer during a robbery in 1979.

The court’s action cleared the way for a death penalty retrial of Myers.

The case was the last in a series decided by the court under Bird in which rehearings were sought before a new court dominated by appointees of Gov. George Deukmejian.

Last week, with Justices John A. Arguelles, David N. Eagleson and Marcus M. Kaufman participating for the first time, the court granted petitions for rehearings by state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp in six criminal cases decided by the old court--including a controversial decision ordering the release on parole of “Onion Field” killer Gregory Ulas Powell.

Thursday’s action came on a petition for rehearing by state Public Defender Frank O. Bell Jr., asking the court to reconsider its affirmance of Myers’ conviction.

The old court had rejected Myers’ claim that the conviction should be overturned because the jury in his case was improperly selected. Myers cited a ruling the justices made in 1984 allowing defendants to challenge the selection process when the jury panel did not reflect the racial makeup of a county as a whole. The court held Jan. 2 that the 1984 ruling could not be applied retroactively to Myers’ case, which had been tried before that decision.

In seeking a rehearing, the public defender argued that under another ruling issued Jan. 13 by the U.S. Supreme Court, Myers should be entitled to retroactive application of the state court’s 1984 decision.

Deputy Attys. Gen. John R. Gorey and Thomas L. Willhite Jr. contended that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling should not apply to Myers’ case--and that if the justices were going to reconsider his case, they should at the same time review the validity of the 1984 ruling on jury selection.

The prosecutors said also that while they had not directly challenged that part of the Bird court’s decision that overturned Myers’ death penalty, the court should examine that issue also if it granted the public defender’s petition for rehearing.

The justices in their Jan. 2 ruling had invalidated Myers’ sentence of death on the basis of faulty jury instructions.

Jurors had been told by the trial judge that if they sentenced Myers to life without parole instead of death, the governor could commute that life sentence to permit release. The court found that such an instruction improperly fails to point out that the governor is empowered to commute death sentences as well.

The court also cited another instruction it found invalid because the judge had not given jurors sufficient discretion in weighing aggravating and mitigating factors in the case as it deliberated whether to impose the death penalty.