State Supreme Court Upholds Sentence of Death for Three Killers : Punishment: Appellants included man who murdered former football star’s relatives. Justices have affirmed the penalty 27 consecutive times since June.

The state Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the death sentences of three convicted killers, including the triggerman in the mistaken-identity murders of the mother and three other relatives of former football star Kermit Alexander.

In a 6-1 decision, the justices turned down an appeal by Tiequon Aundray Cox, 25, found guilty with two other men in the execution-style killings of Ebora Alexander, her daughter Dietra, and her grandsons Damani Garner and Damon Bonner in Los Angeles in August, 1984.

The court, in a 120-page opinion by Justice Armand Arabian, described the home where the bullet-riddled bodies were found as a “scene of horror.” Two witnesses in the getaway van testified that as Cox re-entered the vehicle, he said: “I just blew the . . . head off. So drive.”

The decision was welcomed as “absolutely justified” by state Deputy Atty. Gen. Carol Pollack. “This was a very brutal and unprovoked attack on four innocent people,” she said. The attorney for Cox could not be reached.

In a second ruling, the court unanimously affirmed the death penalty for Lavell Frierson, 33, for the murder of Edgardo Kramer, a Peruvian airline employee, during a kidnaping and robbery near Los Angeles International Airport in 1978.

The decision marked the third time Frierson’s case has come before the high court. In 1979, the justices for the first time upheld the constitutionality of a 1977 law reinstating the death penalty, but ordered a retrial for Frierson on grounds of inadequate legal counsel.

In 1985, the court overturned a new death sentence for Frierson on similar grounds. After another trial, the justices upheld the third death sentence imposed on Frierson. “We have an uneasy feeling of deja vu, “ Arabian wrote for the court. “This time, however . . . the journey ends.”

In a third ruling Thursday, the justices unanimously upheld the death sentence of Ronald Lee Deere, 39, convicted of the first-degree murder of Don Davis and second-degree murders of Michelle and Melissa Davis in Blythe in 1982.

With Thursday’s three decisions, the high court now has affirmed 27 consecutive death verdicts since June, 1990. In all, the court has upheld 97 capital sentences and reversed only 27 since conservatives took control following the defeat of former Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird and two other liberals in the fall, 1986, election.

Cox was convicted in 1986 on four counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of the relatives of Alexander, a onetime defensive back for UCLA and the Los Angeles Rams. Another defendant, Horace Burns, was sentenced to life in prison without parole. A third man, Darren Charles Williams, was sentenced to death as the mastermind of the attack.

Prosecutors charged that Williams hired Cox and Burns to help kill a neighbor of the Alexander family for $50,000. Cox and Williams apparently misread the address on the door and charged mistakenly into the Alexander home. Cox gunned down Alexander’s mother as she drank coffee and shot the others as they were lying in bed, according to authorities. Burns remained in the van with two others.

Cox was sentenced to death by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Roger W. Boren, who described him as a “menace to society.” In his automatic appeal to the high court, Cox raised a series of claims contending that he was denied a fair trial--but all were rejected by the court.

The justices denied Cox’s contention that the prosecution was improperly permitted to cite his lack of contrition as a factor in support of the death penalty. The killer’s blunt comments as he re-entered the van suggested “a callous indifference” to the murders, Arabian noted. The prosecution’s remarks were permissible to answer pleas by Cox’s family to spare his life, the justice said.

The court also upheld Judge Boren’s denial of a new trial on the grounds of jury misconduct during deliberations in the penalty phase of the case.

Among other things, Cox’s lawyers contended there was evidence that some jurors felt intimidated and changed their votes after other jurors refused a request that they not smoke.

The defense also charged that one juror had been drinking during lunch hours and that another juror declared it did not matter whether they voted for death because “with Rose Bird on the court, Mr. Cox would not die anyway.”