Court Voids Death Sentence

A federal appeals court Wednesday struck down the death sentence of a San Bernardino man who was convicted of a double murder in 1983, saying that his state court-appointed lawyer failed to adequately represent him.

All 11 judges on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel--including several staunch conservatives--agreed that the death sentence should be overturned. Four of the jurists said that the attorney’s performance had been so horrendous that the guilty verdict should be overturned as well.

The 9th Circuit ordered the San Bernardino County Superior Court to hold a new sentencing hearing for Demetrie L. Mayfield, who was convicted of shotgunning to death a neighbor, Ora Mae Pope, in February 1983, after she told the police that Mayfield had stolen her car. Mayfield then killed John Moreno, a neighbor who was at Pope’s house, to eliminate the only witness to the crime.

Mayfield confessed to the slayings the next day.

Court records show that Mayfield’s attorney, S. Donald Ames, had spent only 40 hours preparing for the guilt and penalty phases of the case, far less than what a conscientious lawyer would do in a capital case.

In particular, appellate Judge Richard Tallman, who wrote the lead opinion, said that Ames had failed to interview or call witnesses who could have presented mitigating testimony about Mayfield that might have caused the jury to render a sentence of life without possibility of parole.

This marks the second time that the 9th Circuit has reversed a death verdict rendered in a case in which Ames, who died last year, was the defense lawyer. Allegations of a deficient performance by Ames are also at issue in a third case now pending at the U.S. Supreme Court.

It is unusual for a death verdict to be overturned on the grounds that a lawyer provided ineffective assistance because the Supreme Court has mandated high hurdles for such an action. The defendant has to show that the attorney’s work was well below professional norms and that shoddy work affected the outcome.

And it is rare for one attorney to have two verdicts reversed on these grounds, said Elisabeth Semel, director of the death penalty clinic at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law.

“When you read a decision like this, it gives lie to the statement that all is well in the state of California with regard to competent counsel being provided in death penalty cases,” Semel said.

Mayfield’s death sentence previously had been upheld by the California Supreme Court, a federal trial judge in Los Angeles and a three-judge panel of 9th Circuit judges. After the first 9th Circuit decision, Mayfield’s attorneys were granted a rehearing.

Among the 9th Circuit judges who voted to reverse the death sentence Wednesday was Andrew J. Kleinfeld, who had been one of the three who earlier upheld it. He did not write a separate opinion to explain why he changed his mind.

In Tallman’s opinion, he went through Mayfield’s history, relating how childhood diabetes had led to many problems for the young man, who eventually became a user of drugs, including PCP.

Years after the murder convictions, appellate lawyers Andrea Asaro and Sanford Rosen presented evidence at a habeas corpus hearing about Ames’ lack of work and witnesses who had favorable things to say about Mayfield but were never interviewed by Ames. Among them were people who said that Mayfield “was generally not a violent person.”

Tallman noted these individuals “testified that they would have told the jury that they loved Mayfield and would have asked the jury to spare his life.”

“We are not confident that with the additional evidence presented at the [later] evidentiary hearing, a unanimous jury still would have returned a sentence of death,” Tallman wrote.

In a separate concurring opinion, Judge Ronald M. Gould said that “Ames’ failure to call any family members or friends who could have humanized Mayfield falls well below ‘an objective standard of reasonableness,’ ” the Supreme Court standard for showing that an attorney provided ineffective assistance to his client in violation of the 6th Amendment.

In a third opinion, Judge Susan Graber, who noted in her ruling that she has upheld many death penalty verdicts, said that Ames’ performance was so horrendous that he was, in effect, working for the prosecution.

Graber also said that Ames had such contempt for his black clients that he was unable to represent them properly. She cited testimony from Ames’ former secretary that he “consistently” used racial slurs. Mayfield is black.

And in a fourth opinion, Judge D. Michael Hawkins, a former prosecutor, said it was “a painful truth of the death penalty process that these most serious cases sometimes draw the least adequate counsel.” He said that Ames’ representation “was the functional equivalent of no counsel at all.”

Attorney Michael Crain, who represented Mayfield at the 9th Circuit, said he was ecstatic about the outcome.

“No other court had looked at the case in a close way to see what Ames really did,” Crain said. “He did things time and again that helped the prosecution.”

A spokeswoman for the California Attorney General’s office said, “We’re disappointed given the number of courts that have upheld this decision. We’re reviewing the decision, and we’ll decide later whether to appeal” to the U.S. Supreme Court.