Death Penalty Is Upheld, 4-3

The state Supreme Court today narrowly upheld the death sentence of a man convicted of fatally shooting a Riverside convenience store clerk during a $33 robbery in 1981.

The 4-3 vote in the case of Richard Boyde, 31, was the closest in any of the 32 affirmations of death sentences by the court since conservatives gained a majority last year. Twelve death sentences have been reversed, all unanimously. The dissent by Justice John Arguelles, who said jurors had been misled into believing that their personal feelings should play no part in the sentencing decision, was the first by any of Gov. George Deukmejian’s five appointees in a death penalty case. Deukmejian’s appointees had voted the same way in each of the previous 43 cases.