Two Death Terms Upheld, New Trial Ordered in Third

The California Supreme Court upheld two death sentences today but ordered a new trial in a third because the man pleaded insanity but was never given a competency hearing.

By a 5-2 vote, the court affirmed the death sentence of Eric Kimble in the 1978 double murder of a Los Angeles stereo store owner and his wife during a burglary of their home. The death sentence of Richard Hovey was unanimously upheld in the 1978 killing of an 8-year-old girl who was left on a Hayward roadside after being kidnaped and stabbed in the head 14 times.

In the single reversal, the court unanimously agreed that Brian D. Hale must have a new trial because he never received a competency hearing in 1980, despite exhibiting bizarre behavior in the court and basing his defense on a claim of not guilty by reason of insanity. Hale was accused of the 1980 robbery murders of 63-year-old Clarence Temple in his Bellflower home and 69-year-old Herman Silber, shot in the parking lot of the Cerritos Shopping Mall.