High Court Upholds 2 Death Sentences

The state Supreme Court affirmed two more death sentences Monday, including one in which the justices upheld the use of a videotaped confession, even though the suspect said at one point, “I’m not going to talk.”

The court unanimously rejected an appeal from Michael Wayne Jennings, 38, found guilty and sentenced to death for the fatal stabbing attack of Violet Newman, 63, during a rape and robbery in her Concord home in August, 1982.

In a 5-2 decision, the justices also upheld the death sentence imposed on Anthony Cornell Bean, 28, for the fatal hammer beating of Beth Schatz, 56, in a 1980 Sacramento robbery. On a second charge in the case, the court affirmed Bean’s conviction and sentence to life without parole for the murder of Eileen Fox, 65, three days later.

40 of 54 Upheld

With Monday’s decisions, the court has now upheld 40 of the 54 death sentences it has heard since the defeat of Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird and two other justices in the fall, 1986, election.

The court, in an opinion by Justice David N. Eagleson, rejected Jennings’ contention that incriminating statements he made to investigators should not have been used as evidence because they were made after he invoked his constitutional right to silence.

Under the 1966 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Miranda v. Arizona and other decisions, suspects must be warned of their right to remain silent and cannot be questioned further after asserting that right.

According to a transcript, Jennings at one point told an interrogating officer: “I’ll tell you something right now. You’re scaring . . . me. I’m not going to talk. . . . That’s it. I shut up.”

But the justices, upholding a similar finding by the trial judge in the case, said their own review of the videotaped proceedings indicated that Jennings was only reflecting “momentary frustration and animosity” to an officer he disliked and suspected was misconstruing what he said.

Context a Factor

“Were we to base our decision solely on the reporter’s transcript of those portions of the interview on which (Jennings) relies, his claim that he invoked his right to silence would appear meritorious,” Eagleson wrote. “On a review of the full tape and consideration in the context of the words on which the defendant relies, a different picture emerges.”

Jennings’ further statements to other officers, made after he apologized for his outburst, were voluntary and indicated that he had not meant to assert his privilege against self-incrimination, the court said.

In answering those questions, authorities said, Jennings revealed information that could have been known only to the killer.

In another opinion by Eagleson, the court majority rejected Bean’s contention that he should have been tried separately for the two unrelated murders for which he was charged.

The justices said that while evidence from one case could not be used in the other, there was no showing that the trial judge’s decision to try the cases at the same time prejudiced the jury against Bean.

In such circumstances, the benefits of joining the two cases--such as conserving court time and funds--outweighed any potential for prejudice, Eagleson said. And in both cases, there was substantial evidence, he said.

Dissenting Opinion

In dissent, Justice Allen E. Broussard, joined by Justice Stanley Mosk, said that Bean should not have been sentenced to death for the murder of Schatz, nor convicted for the murder of Fox.

The evidence in the Fox case was “extremely weak,” Broussard said, and had the cases been tried separately, a jury might not have brought back a conviction. By trying the cases together, there was an inevitable prejudicial “spillover,” and the likelihood of Jennings receiving the death penalty was unfairly increased, he said.

In another decision Monday, the justices made it easier for county officials to win court challenges to service-connected disability pensions awarded to employees by local retirement boards. By a vote of 5 to 2, the court held that in reviewing such challenges, trial judges can apply their “independent judgment” to the validity of the award, rather than overturn only those awards made without “substantial evidence.”

The decision was a victory for Alameda County authorities who had filed suit to contest a disability pension award to Roger L. Carnes, a former deputy sheriff, by the Board of Retirement of the Alameda County Employees Retirement Assn. in 1979.

Carnes, then 35, claimed that work-related auto and other accidents prevented him from performing regular duties. The county contested the claim, presenting as evidence a film taken by a private investigator showing Carnes shoveling horse manure at a stable and bending and moving without apparent difficulty.