Bird Court’s Major Death Penalty Ruling Reversed : Intent to Kill Not Necessary

The state Supreme Court, with a new conservative majority, today repealed the most important death penalty ruling by the former Rose Elizabeth Bird court, declaring that intent to kill is not required for a death sentence.

Ruling in the case of a man convicted of strangling two women in 1979, the court held 6 to 1 that a defendant who kills unintentionally during felonies, such as robbery, rape or burglary, can be sentenced to death.

The ruling reversed a 1983 decision by the court that a jury must find intent to kill before imposing a death sentence.

That decision has already required partial retrials of more than a dozen cases and was expected to affect as many as 90. It was also one of the key rulings cited by opponents of Bird and two other justices, who were defeated in last November’s election after a campaign that focused on the death penalty.

Mosk Changes Sides

Justice Stanley Mosk, who had voted with the majority in the 1983 decision, voted today to overturn that decision. Mosk said the court had erred four years ago. He said the justices had misinterpreted a 1978 death penalty initiative on the issue of intent to kill.

Mosk also said the U.S. Supreme Court, whose rulings had been cited by the previous majority in deciding that intent to kill was constitutionally required, had since stated clearly that no such requirement existed.

Only “when the defendant is an aider and abettor rather than the actual killer” must intent to kill be proved, Mosk said.

In a strongly worded dissent, Justice Allen Broussard, author of the 1983 ruling, said today’s decision raised the possibility of unjust executions and implied that the majority was bowing to politics.

‘Virtues of Steady Course’

“When the political winds gust in a new direction, it becomes necessary to remind all concerned of the virtues of a steady course,” Broussard said, citing the legal maxim that courts should follow precedent.

Since the 1983 ruling, juries in death penalty cases have been told they must find that the defendant intended to kill. Today’s decision means that such an instruction is no longer required and also that death sentences may be allowed to stand in pending appeals where an intent instruction was not given. Death sentences already reversed, however, will not be reinstated.

The overturning of the Bird court decision by a court now led by Chief Justice Malcolm Lucas, and dominated by appointees of Gov. George Deukmejian, was welcomed by prosecutors and grimly accepted by defense attorneys.

“This squares California law with the holding of the U.S. Supreme Court,” Chief Assistant Atty. Gen. Steve White said.

‘We’ve Dreaded It’

“We’ve dreaded it but we’re not surprised,” said Deputy State Public Defender Larry Pizarro, death penalty coordinator for the Los Angeles office.

Today’s decision came in the case of James Phillip Anderson, convicted of kidnaping, robbing and strangling two women in Coachella in March, 1979.

The court reversed Anderson’s death sentence today because the jury was told that if Anderson were sentenced to life in prison without parole rather than death, the governor could commute the sentence to life with possibility of parole.

The court left intact its 1984 ruling that such an instruction is one-sided and misleading. The ruling entitles Anderson to a new trial that will decide whether he gets a death sentence or life without parole.