Justices Curb State Case Appeals to U.S. Courts : Law: The Supreme Court reverses a 25-year trend. Death Row inmates are expected to find their ability to delay executions severely limited.

For the last 25 years, the federal courts have offered a second chance to Death Row inmates.

Federal judges were empowered to take a second look at state criminal convictions and to overturn those that violated the U.S. Constitution. Critics said this two-track system of court reviews led to endless appeals and years of delay. Even the most brutal and pitiless murderer, properly convicted and sentenced to die, could keep his case tied up in appeals for 10 years or more, they said.

Proponents said this system helped assure that only those persons properly convicted and sentenced would be executed.

This week, the critics appear to have won. In two decisions announced Monday, the Supreme Court sent a clear message: Once a prisoner’s conviction has been upheld on an initial appeal, neither a federal judge nor the Supreme Court will come to his rescue.

Federal judges may not apply new interpretations of the Constitution to overturn past convictions or sentences. And the Supreme Court will no longer apply its rulings retroactively to free Death Row inmates.

Foes of the death penalty were outraged.

“This means we will have blatantly unconstitutional executions,” said Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee in Atlanta. “I thought we would never get to a point in this country where the Supreme Court would say that.”

The Washington Legal Foundation, which supports the death penalty, countered that the rulings will get federal judges out of state court matters.

“The court has made clear it wants to stop these endless appeals. They are saying that ‘due process’ does not mean endless process,” said Alan Slobodin, general counsel for the legal studies division.

Under the previous rules, a prisoner could win a new trial at any time he could show his conviction or sentence was unconstitutionally tainted. Now, a prisoner can win a new trial or sentencing only if he shows that his conviction or sentence was clearly unconstitutional at the time it was imposed.

The two cases decided Monday illustrate both aspects of the court’s new approach.

In 1980, Horace Butler, a South Carolina man, was arrested for an assault, questioned by police and retained a lawyer. A few days later, the police, without consulting his lawyer, questioned him about an unsolved murder. Based on his answers, he was convicted and sentenced to die.

In 1988, the Supreme Court ruled that this sort of police questioning violated the Miranda doctrine and was unconstitutional. But on Monday, the court nonetheless upheld Butler’s death sentence, saying his conviction was not unconstitutional when it was handed down 10 years ago. (Butler vs. McKellar)

A second decision upheld the death sentence of Robyn Leroy Parks. In 1979, the Oklahoma jury that sentenced him was told it should not be swayed by “any influence of sympathy” for him. His lawyers contended this instruction was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court had never ruled squarely on this issue, but last year, a federal appeals court in Denver ruled for Parks and ordered a new sentencing hearing for him.

On Monday, the high court reversed that decision and said the federal judges in Denver had no authority to set a new interpretation of the law in this case. (Saffle vs. Parks)

The two decisions mark a triumph for Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. First appointed as a law-and-order justice by President Richard M. Nixon in 1971, Rehnquist was elevated to the chief justiceship by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. He has long complained that the federal courts meddle too much in the affairs of the states.

Last year, Rehnquist originated a controversial proposal to change federal law so as to give Death Row inmates only one, six-month chance to appeal their cases in the federal courts. That proposal is to be considered by the Senate later this month.

But the two 5-4 rulings issued by the court Monday go a long way toward achieving what Rehnquist has sought in the new legislation.

Monday’s decisions leave only two possibilities for a Death Row inmate to get the attention of the federal court:

First, a prisoner whose conviction has just been affirmed by his state supreme court can appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

For example, after the California Supreme Court upheld a death sentence in 1988 for Riverside murderer Richard Boyde, he appealed directly to the Supreme Court, contending the instructions given to his jury were unconstitutional.

The justices hear fewer than 2% of such appeals, but Boyde gained a hearing. However, the court ruled against him Monday on a 5-4 vote.

Secondly, prisoners such as Boyde still retain the right to try to show a federal court at any time that they were convicted under procedures that even then were considered blatantly unconstitutional.

BACKGROUND

In the Habeas Corpus Act of 1867, Congress said federal courts may act on pleas from persons held “in custody in violation of the Constitution.” In the 1960s, the Supreme Court said this law gave the federal courts broad power to examine criminal convictions in the states. But the high court has now reversed direction. Federal courts will no longer come to the rescue of state Death Row inmates except in rare circumstances.