Justices Refuse to Hasten Execution : Law: U.S. Supreme Court lets stand a delay in the case of man who killed a Garden Grove police officer in 1980.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to interfere with a lower court decision to delay the execution of John G. Brown, convicted of killing Garden Grove police officer Donald Reed in June, 1980.

Brown was in a bar when he fired on Reed and other officers who were trying to arrest him on drug charges. Four others were wounded by the gunfire.

Brown was convicted and sentenced to death. But a federal judge blocked the execution when Brown asked that a court-appointed lawyer be assigned to represent him and prepare a formal appeal to the federal courts. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the judge’s order.

California prosecutors said the federal courts exceeded their authority.

The state lawyers had argued that Brown was not entitled to a stay of execution because in asking for legal representation, he had not filed a formal federal court appeal alleging that his constitutional rights had been violated. He has since filed such an appeal.

The Supreme Court, specifically Chief Justice William Rehnquist, has taken steps in recent years to reduce the number of federal appeals that can be made by a state convict who has exhausted his state appeals process.

Last week the court four times lifted stays of execution granted by the 9th Circuit in the case of Robert Alton Harris.

Finally, it ordered the 9th Circuit--considered the most liberal of the nation’s 13 federal circuit courts--not to issue any further stays, and Harris became the first California convict executed in 25 years.

Brown was sentenced to die in California’s gas chamber for the 1980 killing. But seven days before his scheduled execution, Brown made a request of a federal judge for an attorney so he could pursue further federal appeals.

“I intend to file a petition for writ of habeas corpus in this court, alleging federal constitutional errors which entitle me to relief from the judgment of death,” Brown wrote a federal district court. “I need the assistance of counsel in preparing and litigating the petition.”

The district court granted the stay, and the 9th Circuit later upheld its right to do so.

“We conclude that the underlying purpose of the writ of habeas corpus requires us to view the application for the appointment of counsel . . . as an integral part of the habeas corpus process,” the 9th Circuit wrote. “Viewed in this manner, a habeas corpus proceeding is pending before a federal district court when such an application is filed.”

Brown has since filed his federal habeas corpus appeal and remains on Death Row awaiting its outcome.