Expanded Death Penalty Under Prop. 115 Upheld : Executions: Ruling in an Orange County case involving a 14-month-old child’s slaying, the state Supreme Court allows accomplices in murder cases to be sent to the gas chamber.

The state Supreme Court on Thursday upheld an expansion of the death penalty under Proposition 115 that allows accomplices to be executed if they played a major role in a crime that led to a killing.

Ruling in an Orange County case, the justices rejected assertions that the capital provisions of the sweeping 1990 criminal justice initiative were invalid because of a conflict with a narrower measure that won more votes in the same election.

The court, in a 6-1 decision, found that the initiatives were complementary--not conflicting--and thus both could take effect.

“The propositions at issue here were not expressly or even impliedly presented to the voters as competing or alternative measures,” Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas wrote for the court majority.

The case involved Wayne Ichija Yoshisato of Huntington Beach who was charged in July, 1990, with murdering his girlfriend’s 14-month-old daughter during a rape with a foreign object.

The decision was an important victory for backers of Proposition 115, which was aimed at reducing delays in the justice system and limiting the procedural rights of criminal defendants.

The initiative, passed in the June primary two years ago with a 57% majority vote, widened the circumstances in which the death penalty could be imposed on killers.

Among other things, the measure allows executions for the murder of a witness in a juvenile proceeding; for killings in the commission of mayhem or rape with a foreign object, and for accomplices who, though not the killers, are “major participants” and act with indifference to life in robberies or other felonies resulting in death.

A similar version of the accomplice provision has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in an Arizona case. Under previous California law, proof of intent to kill was required for accomplices. Attorneys on both sides of the case that was decided Thursday said the new provision will prove important in this state.

“This is a major expansion of the law,” Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. E. Thomas Dunn Jr. said. “Now people who are not actual killers but who are major players and act with reckless indifference can be in line for the death penalty.”

Orange County Deputy Public Defender Kevin J. Phillips expressed dismay with the ruling. “Now prosecutors will be able to ask for death in cases they never could before,” he said. “An accomplice now can be put to death without having to prove he actually intended a killing.”

At issue before the justices was whether the death penalty provisions of Proposition 115 could be upheld in light of the simultaneous passage of Proposition 114, a narrower initiative backed by police groups that won 71% of the vote. That measure expanded the capital crime of murder of a peace officer to include more categories, such as investigators for the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Under the state Constitution, when there is a conflict between two measures approved on the same ballot, the one with the most votes prevails.

Prosecutors sought to make Yoshisato eligible for the gas chamber under Proposition 115. But before his trial, defense attorneys challenged the capital charge, contending that Proposition 114 retained the provision of the law calling for maximum punishment of 25 years to life in prison for the crime.

An Orange County Superior Court judge rejected Yoshisato’s claim but in August a state Court of Appeal in Santa Ana reversed the decision. The three-member appeals panel concluded that none of Proposition 115’s death penalty provisions could take effect because the proposition that got the most votes effectively left existing law intact.

The high court reversed the appellate court’s ruling Thursday in a 22-page opinion by Lucas. Comparing the provisions of Propositions 115 and 114 showed that none were in conflict, the court said.

In his dissent, Justice Stanley Mosk contended that both measures presented a “comprehensive scheme” for regulating the death penalty and so Proposition 115’s provisions, with fewer votes, should not take effect.