Court Says Trial Was Fair

A federal appeals court declined Friday to review the case of a San Bernardino County killer scheduled for execution next month at San Quentin State Prison.

In a two-page decision, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the performance of Stephen Wayne Anderson’s trial attorney did not violate his 6th Amendment right to a fair trial.

Anderson, 48, who has been on death row for 20 years, is to be executed Jan. 29.

He has until Wednesday to file a petition for clemency with Gov. Gray Davis’ office.

Anderson was convicted in 1981 of killing Elizabeth Lyman, a retired 81-year-old piano teacher, and has exhausted his appeals in the state and federal courts. The U.S. Supreme Court declined last month to review the sentence.

Anderson’s appellate attorneys had asked the 9th Circuit Court to rehear arguments on the performance of lawyer Donald Ames, who died last year. They contend that their client received ineffective legal assistance from Ames.

The 9th Circuit has converted two other death sentences to life terms because of Ames’ poor work. In one decision, the court called Ames’ performance in the 1983 trial of Demetrie L. Mayfield “horrendous.”

But a panel of appellate judges ruled last year that Ames’ performance in the Anderson case did not violate the Constitution. Anderson’s attorneys had asked for a larger panel of judges to rehear arguments, given the ruling in the Mayfield case. The 9th Circuit denied the motion Friday.

Anderson, who had escaped from a Utah state prison, shot Lyman in the face before burglarizing her San Bernardino home in 1980. Then he watched television in her living room and ate a dish of noodles while she bled to death.