San Diego

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected the appeals of two San Diego County men who were convicted of murder and are now awaiting execution on California’s death row.

Without comment, the justices let stand rulings that Bernard Lee Hamilton and Michael Williams each received a fair trial and was properly sentenced to die in the gas chamber.

Hamilton, 37, was convicted in early 1981 of the decapitation slaying of Eleanor Buchanan, a 28-year-old Mesa College student and mother of two who was last seen alive walking to her van from a night class on May 31, 1979. Buchanan’s body was found with its head and hands cut off. Hamilton was arrested 10 days later, driving Buchanan’s van, in Oklahoma.

The high court’s action lets stand a decision by the California Supreme Court last May upholding Hamilton’s death sentence. That ruling reversed a 1985 decision by the California court that overturned Hamilton’s death sentence.

Hamilton’s attorney, Barry Morris of Oakland, said he was not surprised by Monday’s events, given the hundreds of similar petitions the Supreme Court receives. He said Hamilton, now in San Quentin, will next file a federal petition for habeas corpus.

Williams, 26, of Santee, was convicted of the murder of Gregory Lock, 21, in an industrial area of National City on Sept. 29, 1981. A jury found that Williams shot Lock five times in the back during a robbery that netted $2.50. Two other men, Kevin Finckel and Normal Steeg, were involved in the attack. Finckel is serving a 15-year-to-life sentence for his part in the crime. Steeg’s case was remanded by a state appellate court for retrial.