State High Court Limits Death Row Appeals

A divided California Supreme Court, ruling Thursday in a notorious Los Angeles murder case, substantially restricted the ability of Death Row inmates to challenge their sentences.

The decision will probably reduce the time it takes before a condemned inmate is put to death in California and provide a second opportunity for review of a sentence only under narrow circumstances.

Prosecutors and victims right groups have long sought to limit habeas corpus petitions--constitutional challenges to a verdict or sentence--in capital cases, complaining that Death Row inmates have abused the legal system by repeatedly filing frivolous challenges.

A majority of the court’s seven justices agreed, ruling that all claims must be raised in a single petition and that all later petitions must justify why the claims were not filed earlier.

If an inmate cannot justify his late filing, he must demonstrate that there was a fundamental miscarriage of justice at his trial--showing, for instance, that no reasonable judge or jury would have convicted him or returned a death penalty in the absence of a major error.

Justice Joyce L. Kennard, in a lengthy dissent, complained of the new standard’s undue harshness and argued that it will be virtually impossible for the court to review a death sentence a second time, even if the petition has merit and would have succeeded if filed earlier.

“This court may be compelled to deny relief to a defendant sentenced to death as a result of a grossly unfair trial,” Kennard wrote, “simply because the defendant ought to have brought the claim to us somewhat earlier.”

Justice Stanley Mosk, writing in a separate dissent, acknowledged that multiple legal challenges in death cases are costly and time-consuming for the court.

“That, however, is the cost of justice,” Mosk wrote. “Out of fidelity to our judicial oath, we must pay the price.”

But the majority, in an opinion written by Justice Marvin R. Baxter, complained that successive petitions in death penalty cases waste scarce judicial resources and undermine the finality of the sentence.

“Piecemeal litigation prevents the positive values of deterrence, certainty and public confidence from attaching to the judgment,” Baxter wrote.

Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas sided with the majority, but in a concurring opinion argued for even tighter standards to limit habeas corpus appeals from Death Row, saying that greater strictness would give proper weight to the state’s interest in finality and more easily eliminate frivolous petitions.

The U.S. Supreme Court has sharply limited the ability of Death Row inmates to make a second habeas corpus challenge in federal court, and Thursday’s decision imposes similar restrictions under California law.

In addition to demonstrating an error so great that without it no reasonable judge or jury would have returned the same conviction or sentence, an inmate also could have his petition reviewed by showing evidence that he is innocent or was convicted under an invalid law.

The ruling came in the case of William John Clark, a Canoga Park insurance underwriter convicted for the arson killing of the husband of his former psychiatric social worker.

Clark used gasoline to set fire to the Rancho Park home of David and Ava Gawronski. He said that he planned to set the fire to force the couple to flee, and then shoot David Gawronski as his wife watched.

Clark said he wanted the woman to suffer for dropping him as a patient after he threatened to rape her.

David Gawronski, 35, died and his wife lost her fingers and nose and suffered other serious injuries. A passerby rescued their young daughter from the burning house.

The California Supreme Court affirmed Clark’s death sentence in 1990, and in its decision ruled that mentally competent defendants must be granted requests to represent themselves even in capital cases. Clark acted as his own lawyer at his trial in Santa Monica Superior Court.

He later filed two habeas corpus challenges. The first was rejected, and in acting on the second Thursday, all seven justices agreed that Clark’s petition should be denied. But Mosk disagreed with the new rules, and Kennard supported only part of the decision.

She agreed that inmates should have to justify why they failed to assert their claims in their first petition, but complained that the court has imposed a nearly insurmountable hurdle for those who cannot explain their tardiness.

Kennard said the exceptions to the lateness rule would not help an inmate whose lawyer failed to present mitigating evidence during the penalty phase of the trial even though that evidence might have led the jury to render a different verdict.

Gerald Uelmen, dean of the Santa Clara University School of Law, said the new procedures will put a tremendous burden on the lawyer who files the first appeal to conduct an exhaustive investigation and to ensure that all potential claims are raised.

“What you are doing with rules like these is having the client pay for procedural missteps of the lawyer,” the professor said.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Dane Gillette, the state’s death penalty coordinator, praised the decision, saying it demonstrates that the state’s highest court will be very strict about preventing abuses in the petition process.

“I think it is consistent with the interest of victims groups in ensuring these cases don’t get dragged out forever and forever on successive petitions,” he said.

The kinds of cases that will be able to meet the court’s tough standard for review are yet to be determined, he said, but probably would include one in which a judge was found to be clearly biased.

The new rules should “decrease the time from judgment to execution,” he added, but by how much will depend on how the court applies it. “It’s really an important opinion and it’s going to take a while to digest it,” he said.

The Clark Case

* The killer: William John Clark was convicted in the 1982 murder of a Rancho Park man, David Gawronski, and the attempted murder of his wife, Ava, a therapist.

* The crime: The woman had terminated counseling of Clark, a Canoga Park insurance underwriter, after he threatened to rape her. Clark got the couple’s address from Department of Motor Vehicles records and set their house afire, planning to shoot Gawronski before his wife’s eyes as the couple fled the flames. But David Gawronski died of injuries suffered in the fire. His wife was burned over 80% of her body and spent nine months in a burn ward. Their infant daughter, Sara, was rescued by a neighbor and escaped unharmed. Previously, Clark had forced Ava Gawronski’s car to the curb and attacked her with an ice ax.

* Legal background: In 1990, the State Supreme Court upheld Clark’s death sentence in a landmark ruling that said murder suspects facing the death penalty could act as their own attorney.