Justices Uphold State Death Law : Capital punishment: U.S. Supreme Court ruling eliminates last sweeping challenge to California statute.

The Supreme Court rejected a broad challenge to the fairness of California’s capital punishment law Monday, ruling in a Riverside case that jurors had not been prevented from considering all the evidence before imposing a death sentence.

If the decision had gone the other way, more than 100 inmates on California’s Death Row who were sentenced before 1985 could have sought new sentencing hearings.

Attorneys for the state said the 5-4 ruling eliminates the last sweeping challenge to California’s death penalty law.

Since the law was enacted by voters in 1978, juries have sent at least 273 murderers to San Quentin’s Death Row. None has yet been executed, but San Diego killer Robert Alton Harris is scheduled to die in the gas chamber on April 3. California Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp hailed the Supreme Court decision, saying it “removes a cloud that has hung over more than 100 convictions.”

“Implementation of the death penalty in California is a giant step closer,” Van de Kamp said in a prepared statement.

The case decided Monday focused on how “reasonable jurors” would understand the sentencing instructions read to them after they hear evidence from prosecutors and defense lawyers. The language of the jury instructions is specified by state law.

The instructions say jurors are to consider factors such as the “circumstances of the crime,” the age of the defendant and whether he acted under “extreme duress” or had a history of violent behavior. The jury is told it may consider “any other circumstance which extenuates the gravity of the crime.”

Finally, the jury is told: “If you conclude the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances, you shall impose a sentence of death. If you determine that the mitigating circumstances outweigh the aggravating circumstances, you shall impose a sentence of confinement in the state prison for life without the possibility of parole.”

Lawyers for Richard Boyde, who was convicted of the 1981 kidnaping and murder of a convenience store clerk in Riverside, challenged two aspects of these instructions as unconstitutional.

First, Boyde’s attorneys said the word “outweigh” suggests a calculation, not a judgment by the jury. In the past, the high court has said that jurors must be permitted to make the ultimate judgment on whether a death sentence is appropriate.

Second, Boyde’s attorneys said the list of factors cited by the judge did not cover evidence about his impoverished and unhappy childhood. Repeatedly, the Supreme Court has said jurors must be allowed to consider all evidence that could lessen a defendant’s responsibility for his crime.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, writing for the court, quickly disposed of both contentions, which he referred to at one point as examples of “technical hair-splitting.”

“There is no constitutional requirement of unfettered sentencing discretion in the jury,” Rehnquist declared. “States are free to structure and shape the consideration of mitigating evidence in an effort to achieve a more rational and equitable administration of the death penalty.”

For nearly two decades, the high court has been divided by the issue of jury discretion in death cases. In 1972, the court struck down all the nation’s capital punishment laws because it believed the system was “arbitrary and capricious.” Because juries and judges lacked any guidance, some heinous and calculating murderers were receiving life sentences, while less egregious crimes were resulting in death sentences.

In response, many states prescribed a series of factors and guidelines for juries. Although a narrow Supreme Court majority in 1976 reinstated capital punishment based on these newer, more specific laws, its liberal members complain that juries are now being given too much guidance.

Rehnquist said a reasonable juror would have understood that he or she could consider any evidence about Boyde’s childhood and family background, even though the jury instruction talked only of “circumstance which extenuates the gravity of the crime.”

The jury in Boyde’s case heard four days of testimony from his lawyers during the sentencing hearing. “In our view, reasonable jurors surely would not have felt constrained . . . to ignore all of this evidence,” Rehnquist said.

His opinion in Boyde vs. California, 88-6613, was joined by Justices Byron R. White, Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy.

In dissent, Justice Thurgood Marshall said Boyde’s case raised a “reasonable doubt” about the fairness of his sentence and should have been sent back for a new hearing.

The California Supreme Court has voiced its own doubts about the jury instructions and ordered them amended in 1985. In addition to hearing the original guidelines, jurors also are told specifically they should consider all the evidence before deciding on the punishment they believe is “appropriate.”

Boyde’s lawyers did not contest his guilt. On January, 15, 1981, Boyde, then 24, and an 18-year old nephew abducted Dick Gibson, a night clerk at a 7-Eleven, robbed him of $33 and shot him in the head. Boyde and his nephew, Carl Ellison, were later arrested on suspicion of another robbery and confessed to the murder. Ellison was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

Meanwhile, in two other rulings, the court’s conservatives put sharp new limits on the rights of prisoners to challenge their cases in the federal courts. Since the mid-1960s, the court has given federal judges broad powers to overturn state criminal convictions through habeas corpus petitions. In these petitions, prisoners ask for a second-chance review, possibly years after their convictions were upheld.

But conservatives, led by Rehnquist, have said this system of repetitive challenges has spawned endless litigation and delay, particularly in death penalty cases. On Monday, the court announced it has closed the door to prisoners seeking to have their convictions overturned as unconstitutional years after the main appeals were rejected.

In 1980, Horace Butler, of Charleston, S.C., was arrested on an assault charge and retained a lawyer. A few days later, police questioned him without his lawyer present about an unsolved murder, and he confessed. In 1982, his conviction and death sentence were upheld by the South Carolina Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Two years ago, however, the justices ruled that this sort of police questioning violates the Miranda doctrine and is unconstitutional. Nevertheless, on a 5-4 vote, the court ruled Monday that Butler may not have a new trial because his conviction was upheld long before the 1988 decision (Butler vs. McKellar, 88-6677).

In the second case, Robyn Leroy Parks contended that his death sentence in Oklahoma was imposed unconstitutionally because jurors were told they could not consider “sympathy.” A federal appeals court in Denver ruled for him on this issue. On another 5-4 vote Monday, the justices reversed that conclusion. Parks’ sentence was upheld in 1983, and it is too late now to raise a new challenge, the court said (Saffle vs. Parks, 88-1264).

In other actions, the court:

Ruled unconstitutional the jury instructions in North Carolina’s capital punishment law because they require all 12 jurors to agree before they consider “mitigating evidence” raised by the defendant. In a 6-3 ruling, the justices repeated their admonition that juries must be permitted to weigh all the evidence that could lessen the killer’s responsibility for his crime (McKoy vs. North Carolina, 88-5909).

Let stand a ruling requiring an Ohio company to repay $3.6 million to Iran. As part of the agreement that freed the 52 hostages in 1981, U.S. officials agreed to have an international tribunal resolve claims by Iran. Until this decision, it had been unclear whether federal courts could enforce the decisions of the tribunal (Gould Inc. vs. Iran, 89-1103).

Agreed to decide whether Louisiana officials can give a Death Row inmate mind-altering drugs to maintain his sanity and then execute him. Four years ago, the court ruled that states may not execute insane inmates. Lawyers for convicted killer Michael Owen Perry said state officials are forcibly giving him drugs so they will be able to execute him. The court will hear the case, Perry vs. Louisiana, 89-5120, in the fall.

Refused to hear an appeal from former pilots for Western Airlines, which merged with Delta Airlines in 1986. Today, the pilots work for Delta, but say their new employer has not honored an agreement to arbitrate disputes over seniority.