Court Will Review Ban on ‘Victim Impact’ Evidence : Law: Conservative majority is apparently anxious to overturn a 1987 decision that bars a family from testifying against a convicted killer.

Apparently anxious to overrule a 1987 decision that bars a victim’s family from testifying against a convicted killer, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority said Friday it will speed consideration of a Tennessee case in hopes of reversing the earlier ruling by July.

Three liberal justices dissented, accusing their colleagues of an unseemly rush to judgment.

At issue is whether a jury deciding the fate of a convicted killer can be told about the murder’s impact on the victim’s family. On June 15, 1987, the Supreme Court ruled out such “victim impact” testimony in death penalty cases. It reasoned that a family member’s testimony can be so powerful that it could “improperly divert” the jury’s attention from the actions and the character of the killer.

The ruling, in the case of Booth vs. Maryland, was seen as a blow to the “victim’s rights” movement. But it came on a 5-4 vote and was written by Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., who resigned from the court two weeks later.

Since then, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and several of his conservative allies have sought to reverse the decision. But they have been frustrated in their effort to find a suitable vehicle for doing so.

Last month, the justices thought they had such a case before them. Ohio prosecutors contended that the Booth ruling should be reversed because it figured in a state court ruling that overturned a killer’s death sentence.

But during a Jan. 16 hearing, the justices discovered the state decision was based mostly on Ohio law, not the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to overturn state decisions based on state law. Frustrated, they dismissed the case.

On Friday, the justices had before them several hundred pending appeals, including one from Pervis Payne, an inmate on Tennessee’s Death Row who challenged his sentence. He had been convicted in 1988 of killing a 28-year-old woman. During his sentencing hearing, the victim’s mother testified that the crime had devastated the woman’s 3-year-old son. Ignoring the Booth ruling, the Tennessee courts upheld Payne’s death sentence.

These days, appeals from Death Row inmates rarely get favorable attention from the Supreme Court. But the justices decided to hear Payne’s appeal. His attorneys, as well as those for the state, were told to file briefs on “whether Booth vs. Maryland . . . should be overruled.”

Normally, attorneys are given 60 days to submit briefs to the court. The opposing parties then are given another 30 days to submit replies.

But in Friday’s order in the case of Payne vs. Tennessee, 90-5721, the court said that those timetables will be cut in half. That way, the argument can be heard in the last week of April, the final week of arguments in the current term. Barring any new procedural problems, a decision will be handed down by July 1.

Justices John Paul Stevens, Thurgood Marshall and Harry A. Blackmun issued a dissent, saying the move to speed the case was “unwise and unnecessary.” Repeatedly in recent years, Stevens has accused his colleagues of “judicial activism.”