Death Penalty for Paraplegic Upheld : Police slayings: State Supreme Court rejects plea of man who killed two Riverside officers as revenge for crippling wounds sustained in a shoot-out after a bank robbery.

The state Supreme Court on Monday affirmed the death penalty for a paraplegic man convicted of murdering two Riverside officers to avenge crippling wounds he received in a shoot-out with police two years earlier.

The justices unanimously refused to grant a retrial to Jackson Chambers Daniels Jr., who was sentenced to death for the 1982 fatal shootings of Dennis C. Doty and Philip N. Trust.

The officers were ambushed when they went to arrest Daniels for failing to surrender to begin a 13-year term for a foiled 1980 bank robbery. The robbery attempt ended in an exchange of gunfire that left Daniels paralyzed from the waist down.

The high court, in a 107-page opinion by Justice Allen E. Broussard, rejected Daniels’ contention that evidence of the robbery and his crippling wounds was improperly admitted at the murder trial.

The justices held that the two events were directly related and that the evidence was validly admitted. Connecting the two crimes helped show that Daniels killed the officers in vengeance for his injuries, the court said.

The court also turned down Daniels’ claim that he was unfairly denied a change of trial site in the wake of potentially prejudicial publicity over the killings.

More than 3,000 people attended the officers’ funeral and numerous letters to newspapers demanded Daniels’ execution. The school board considered renaming a football stadium for Doty and, on the anniversary of the slayings, the county unveiled a nine-foot statue dedicated to officers killed in the line of duty.

The court called the offense one of “extreme seriousness and gravity” and acknowledged that local news coverage had been extensive. The justices noted that at trial, the defense used only 15 of its alloted 26 peremptory challenges to remove potentially biased jurors.

In failing to use the remaining challenges or raise any objection to the jury that was chosen, the defense had signified that “the jury as selected was fair and impartial,” Broussard wrote.

State Deputy Atty. Gen. Deborah D. Factor called Monday’s ruling “well justified” in view of Daniels’ long record of violent crime, including not only the murders but also assault and eight armed robberies in Los Angeles.

John T. Philipsborn, a San Francisco lawyer representing Daniels, said further appeals will be pursued in state and federal courts. “Unfortunately, this court has affirmed a number of decisions in death penalty cases and thus those of us who do these cases are prepared for such rulings,” Philipsborn said. “Hopefully at some point, we will get his conviction reversed.”

In the bank robbery, Daniels fled in a car and was pursued by police. A tear gas bomb planted in the stolen money forced Daniels to lean out an open door and, after an officer fired, the car came to a halt. In an exchange of gunfire, Daniels was hit in the back and paralyzed.

Daniels was convicted of the crime and freed on bail pending appeal. After his conviction was upheld, Daniels failed to appear in court and Doty and Trust--who were not involved in the 1980 shooting--were assigned to find and arrest him.

A nurse caring for Daniels, Alma Renee Ross, testified that when the officers arrived at the home where Daniels was staying, she saw Daniels reach for a gun he had concealed between his legs. She fled to a closet and gunfire ensued. When she emerged, she saw two officers covered with blood.

Daniels got the frightened woman to help him into a getaway car. He was found three days later in a Rubidoux home. Friends who aided him testified that Daniels told them he had committed the murders and said he had killed the officers in revenge for his wounds. A police investigation showed that the officers had been hit by nine shots--the same number that hit Daniels in the robbery.