Ruling Backs State on Death Penalty Cases

In a procedural victory for state prosecutors, the Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a lower court ruling obtained by California’s death row inmates that had barred the state from seeking fast-track appeals in federal court.

Two years ago, Congress revised the federal Habeas Corpus Act and gave states the option of seeking speedier action on death row appeals in federal court. To qualify, states had to show that they had provided “competent counsel” to the capital defendants during their state appeals.

No sooner had Congress opened this door, however, than it was closed by federal courts in California.

On the day that President Clinton signed the law into effect, a class action suit was filed in San Francisco on behalf of death row inmates at San Quentin prison. It asserted that California did not qualify for the speedier federal appeals because its record of appointing appellate lawyers was spotty.

U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson agreed and ruled that the state had failed the test. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision last year.

But Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren took the case to a friendlier forum, the Supreme Court, and won a unanimous reversal Tuesday.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said death row inmates as a group had no right to seek an advance “declaratory judgment” that would govern all cases. Instead, he said, the issue should be decided based on individual lawsuits.

The ruling in the case (Calderon vs. Ashmus, 97-391) clears away one hurdle for state prosecutors but it does not resolve the matter.

Now, state prosecutors will have another chance to persuade a federal court in a specific case that a death row inmate had been provided with good lawyers in state appeals. If successful, they may be able to qualify for a speedier appeal in federal court.

Often, appeals can languish for a decade in federal court. The new law would require a federal judge to act on an appeal from a death row inmate within six months and require the U.S. Court of Appeals to rule within four months.

However, the Supreme Court did not say just what California or other states must show to qualify for the speedier appeals.

The result will be a series of individual court cases answering that question, at least one of which eventually can be expected to come back to the high court.

No state has yet qualified for the fast-track appeals, lawyers said.

But Tuesday did not bring all good news to state prosecutors. The justices refused the state’s request to reinstate the murder conviction and death sentence of a San Fernando Valley man convicted of killing his father, his stepmother and his stepsister in 1982.

Robert M. Bloom Jr., then 19, pleaded for a death sentence in a bizarre courtroom scene in Van Nuys after a jury convicted him of the triple murder.

Six months ago, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his conviction on the grounds that his trial lawyer had failed to argue that Bloom was mentally unbalanced.

Although the conservative Supreme Court is more supportive of the death penalty than the 9th Circuit, the justices are reluctant to review cases that do not raise a broad legal issue.

Without comment Tuesday, the court simply rejected the state’s appeal in the case (Calderon vs. Bloom, 97-1569).