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

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 Garden Grove 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 the Richard Ramirez sentenced to death for the series of “Night Stalker” murders in Los Angeles County.

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 narcotics.

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.

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.

The victim’s body, containing 19 stab wounds, was found early on the morning of Nov. 21, 1983. 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 killing her.

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. She 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.

Thomas M. Goethals, the former deputy district attorney who prosecuted Ramirez, called it a difficult case to prove in court but “a very strong case” for prosecutors on appeal.

Goethals called it “a brutal crime” that might never have been solved except for a beer bottle found near the victim’s body in an alley behind the bar. Ramirez had been seen with her inside the bar, but no one saw them afterward. However, Ramirez’s fingerprints were found on the bottle, proving to jurors that he had been in the alley with her.

Prosecutors sought a death verdict against Ramirez based on his four prior felony convictions, one of them for rape.