High Court Rejects Mason’s Appeal : Death penalty: Hours after state tribunal acts, federal appeals court rules that killer is mentally competent to bar further attempts to block his execution, which is set for 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.

Greatly increasing the chances that David Edwin Mason will be put to death on schedule next week, the California Supreme Court refused Friday to block his execution and rejected a last-minute charge that he was denied a fair trial.

Late Friday evening, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals moved Mason one step closer to the gas chamber, ruling that he is mentally competent to volunteer for his own execution.

But at the same time, the court extended a lower court stay of execution until eight hours before Mason is scheduled to go to the gas chamber so that other judges in the circuit can be polled to see if they wish to overrule the panel.

Mason, whose decision to volunteer for execution has turned into a last-minute legal morass, had asked the California Supreme Court to stay the execution but told the federal appeals court he wanted to die.

The convicted killer could cancel his 12:01 a.m. Tuesday date with the gas chamber by reactivating his federal appeals, but he has said he wants only the state courts to decide his fate.

After the Supreme Court rejected his request for a stay, his attorney, Mike Brady, said Mason will not take any further steps to halt the execution.

“His position is clearly that there will be no further action taken on behalf of David Mason,” Brady said. “He has advised me he will not seek any further relief, period.”

Mason was convicted in 1983 of strangling and robbing four elderly people in 1980 and of strangling a jail inmate who was sleeping in his cell in 1982.

Mason has said he accepts responsibility for his actions and believes that his death sentence is appropriate. But under prompting this week from death penalty foes and his former attorney, Mason filed the appeal Thursday with the Supreme Court charging that he did not get a fair trial.

The court, which had previously upheld Mason’s conviction on five murder charges, rejected Mason’s claim, saying it found no evidence to support the contention that his public defender engaged in improper conduct during his 1983 murder trial.

“All of the claims, including those that have not been previously presented, have been examined by the court; all lack merit,” the court ruled.

Although he sought a stay from the state Supreme Court, Mason has consistently fought the efforts of his former attorney, Charles Marson, to block the execution on the grounds that he is not mentally competent to decide to die.

District Judge Ronald M. Whyte earlier concluded that Mason is competent, but issued a stay of his own decision this month so the 9th Circuit could review the decision.

In its decision, the appellate court agreed with Whyte’s ruling that Mason is competent but continued the stay until 4 p.m. Monday. In effect, the stay keeps the issue before the federal court and allows time for a specially convened panel of 11 judges to review the decision.

At San Quentin, prison officials are gearing up for the execution and have moved Mason to a new cell where he can be supervised more closely and checked at least once every hour.

“He has been relaxing and spending a lot of time with a lot of his family members,” said Vernell Crittendon, a spokesman for the prison. “He is spending his entire days doing that, reconnecting with his family.”

Mason has made it a matter of principle, Brady said, not to turn to the federal courts and to keep his case in the state system, where his appeals have run out.

Brady said he has advised Mason he has “meritorious issues” and that he should pursue his federal appeals. Nevertheless, Brady said he is 99.9% certain that Mason will not change his mind.

“I encouraged him strongly to seek federal relief,” Brady said.

But Brady said: “Dave Mason is not interested in delaying his execution. He is not interested in eking out the last years of his life stay-to-stay, week-to-week. It’s his own personal resolve.”