Court Upholds Killer’s Death Sentence : Justice: A 6-1 decision turns down an appeal by a Santa Ana man. He was convicted in the rape and fatal stabbing of a Norwalk bank teller outside a bar in 1983.

The state Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the death sentence of a Santa Ana man convicted in the rape and frenzied fatal stabbing of a Norwalk bank teller outside a bar in 1983.

The justices, in a 6-1 decision, turned down an appeal by Richard Raymond Ramirez, 31, a thrice-convicted felon found guilty in the murder of Kimberly Gonzalez, 22. Ramirez is not to be confused with Richard Ramirez, the “Night Stalker” killer sentenced to death for a series of murders in Los Angeles.

In Thursday’s ruling, the high court acknowledged in a majority opinion by Justice Allen Broussard that there were procedural errors in the case but concluded that they were not significant enough to overturn the conviction and sentence.

In one instance, the court said, the prosecutor was improperly allowed to cross-examine Ramirez’s mother and elicit admissions about the defendant’s criminal record as a juvenile and his use of heroin and other drugs.

Such questions went beyond the scope of the mother’s previous testimony for the defense about the family’s troubled home life and thus was inadmissible, the justices said. But the incidents she related were “relatively innocuous” compared to the other evidence of criminal activity the jury properly heard, Broussard wrote for the court.

The justices also said the trial judge, in upholding the jury’s recommendation of death, had erred in considering a probation report that referred to parts of Ramirez’s criminal record that had not been presented to jurors.

But in making his decision, the judge relied primarily on evidence that was placed properly before the jury and the incidents in the report did not play a significant role in his ruling, the court said. Thus, Broussard said, there was no “reasonable possibility” the error affected the case.

In his ruling, Orange County Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin found that the factors favoring the death penalty clearly outweighed the factors against it.

Justice Stanley Mosk said in dissent that the probation report was “particularly damning” to Ramirez because it indicated “his inability to benefit from punishment and confinement.” Under those circumstances, Mosk said, the death penalty should now be set aside and Ramirez sentenced instead to life in prison without parole.

The victim’s body, containing 19 stab wounds, was found early on the morning of Nov. 21, 1983, near the parking lot of a Garden Grove bar. Ramirez, who was on parole after previous convictions for forcible rape, possession of a concealed weapon and receiving stolen property, admitted leaving the bar with Gonzalez but he denied he was the killer.

The prosecution presented evidence showing Ramirez’s fingerprints were on a beer bottle found near the body and offered testimony from a woman Ramirez had raped at knife-point in 1977. The woman said Ramirez cut her face in the same way Gonzalez was cut.

An Orange County Superior Court jury convicted the defendant of murder, rape and sodomy. But in the penalty phase of the case, the jury deadlocked 11 to 1 in favor of a death sentence, forcing a mistrial. Another jury, convened for a penalty retrial, voted unanimously for a verdict of death.