Woman Was Slain Going to Son’s Aid : Death Sentence Upheld in Slaying

A narrowly divided state Supreme Court on Monday upheld the death sentence of the convicted killer of a Long Beach woman who ran to the aid of her son after he was shot during a 1983 robbery.

The court agreed that the prosecution, in seeking the death penalty, had improperly presented the jury with evidence of criminal but nonviolent conduct by the defendant, Andre Burton, when he was a juvenile.

But by a 4-3 vote, the justices said any harm to Burton was far outweighed by evidence of his past conduct that was admissible, including the commission of burglary and attempted robbery.

“The jury also had before it the circumstances of the murder--a coldblooded shooting of a defenseless, 93-pound, 4-foot-11 . . . elderly woman immediately after the defendant twice shot in the face, at point-blank range, his third robbery victim (her son),” Justice Edward A. Panelli wrote for the majority.

The court’s three dissenters, in an opinion by Justice Allen E. Broussard, said that while Burton’s conviction should be upheld, his sentence to death should be overturned because the jury was probably influenced by the improperly admitted parts of his juvenile record, including lewd conduct as a child.

“Evidence was erroneously admitted which painted the defendant as a depraved youth who had failed to profit from earlier efforts at rehabilitation,” Broussard wrote. State Deputy Atty. Gen. Robert F. Katz said the ruling represented “a just result” in the case: “The mother was shot while running up to give assistance. The two senseless shootings probably motivated the jury’s verdict.”

The decision marked the 52nd time the justices have upheld a death sentence in 75 capital rulings issued since conservatives gained control of the court after the defeat of Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird and two other court members in the November, 1986, election. Under Bird’s tenure, the court upheld the death penalty in just four of 68 cases.

Burton, now 26, was convicted of the murder of Gulshakar Khwaja and the severe wounding of her son, Anwar Khwaja, a convenience store owner, during the second of two robberies he committed with an accomplice in February, 1983.