Leniency Sought in Pair of Murder Cases From ‘70s : Justices: Lawyers ask the state Supreme Court to overturn two death sentences. Such action is unlikely.

Defense attorneys sought Thursday to persuade the state Supreme Court to overturn the death sentences of two men convicted in two of the oldest and most brutal capital cases on the court’s docket.

But the justices, questioning lawyers during hearings in Los Angeles, showed no sign they would spare the life of Stevie Lamar Fields, found guilty of the rape and murder of a USC student-librarian in a 14-felony crime rampage in 1978.

And court members were openly skeptical as attorneys asked them to order a third penalty trial for Theodore Frank, convicted in the 1978 rape and torture-murder of a 2-year-old Ventura County girl.

State Deputy Public Defender Stephen Matchett contended that at Frank’s sentencing hearing the trial judge had improperly considered statements by the victim’s grandmother containing “implied threats” that he would be voted out of office if he reduced the jury’s verdict from death to life in prison without parole.

Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas, citing Frank’s “monstrous acts,” expressed sharp doubt about Matchett’s suggestion that the statements influenced the judge’s decision to uphold the death verdict.

“Wasn’t there ample evidence--disturbing evidence--which makes whatever she said just a grain of sand on the beach?” asked Lucas.

State Deputy Atty. Gen. Jeffrey J. Koch, urging the justices to uphold the sentence, said the woman’s statements--permissible or not--could have had little effect in the case. “The fact is, Theodore Frank was an individual who liked to kidnap little girls,” said Koch, pointing to Frank’s 20-year history of child-molestation convictions. “He would pull them into his car, bind them up . . . and commit all sorts of violent, sexual perversions.”

Frank, now 55, was found guilty and sentenced to die for the murder of Amy Sue Seitz of Camarillo. In 1985, the state high court upheld the conviction but overturned the death sentence in a ruling that opponents of former Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird cited in their successful campaign for her ouster.

At a 1987 penalty retrial, held in Orange County on a change of venue, a jury again returned a verdict of death for Frank. At an emotional sentencing hearing, the victim’s grandmother, Patricia A. Linebaugh, a leader in the anti-Bird campaign, asked Superior Court Judge John J. Ryan to impose the maximum penalty.

Ryan did so, but said he based his decision solely on the evidence before the jury. The judge noted that Frank’s young victim had been forced to drink beer, raped, beaten and tortured with locking pliers before she was strangled.

In the other case, Fields, now 32, was sentenced to die for the kidnaping, rape and fatal shooting and beating of Rosemary Janet Cobb, 26, while he was on parole from a prison term for manslaughter. His conviction and death sentence were upheld by the Bird court in 1983. But two years later, after Fields filed a new appeal, the high court reopened the case, ordering further inquiry into whether Fields’ trial lawyer had improperly failed to seek evidence that could have persuaded the jury to recommend life without parole instead of death.

Fields’ lawyers argued Thursday there was a “gold mine” of evidence that could have drawn sympathy from the jury. Among other things, they said, Fields was reared by parents who encouraged him to lead a life of crime. His mother, they said, once showed up at a court hearing wearing the blouse of one of Fields’ victims.

But some court members seemed doubtful that any such evidence could have changed the outcome of the case--and Deputy Atty. Gen. Carol Frederick-Jorstad agreed. “When you consider the crimes (Fields) was convicted of--which were just awful and shockingly senseless--it is inconceivable any reasonable jury would have changed its verdict,” she said.