Washington – The Supreme Court’s first decision of its young term was a swift but divided opinion upholding the death penalty for a California man who killed a young woman during a burglary more than 25 years ago.
Monday’s 5-4 decision was the second time the fate of Fernando Belmontes reached the Supreme Court, and once again the justices sent it back to the California-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, saying the appeals court had misinterpreted the high court’s rulings in overturning Belmontes’ death sentence.
The court heard arguments in the case Oct. 3, its first day hearing cases. The court’s initial decisions in a term often are ones easily reached, and while Monday’s vote could not have been closer, it reflected a common split between conservatives and liberals on the court.
After Belmontes was convicted of bludgeoning to death 19-year-old Steacy McConnell with a dumbbell bar, he and his attorneys presented evidence at the sentencing phase about his troubled childhood and also his conversion to Christianity. They offered what is known as “forward-looking” mitigating evidence, arguing that if given a life sentence, he could lead a productive existence in the structured atmosphere of a prison and perhaps even help others.
But his attorneys said the trial judge misled and confused jurors by not specifically instructing them they could consider such evidence. Instead, the judge, after listing specific mitigating factors, issued a more generic direction to consider any other circumstances “which extenuates the gravity of the crime even though it is not a legal excuse for the crime.”
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, said the judge’s directions were adequate.
Also Monday, justices decided, without comment, against hearing the appeal of Michael Skakel, the nephew of Ethel Kennedy’s who was convicted of beating to death his Greenwich, Conn., neighbor Martha Moxley 31 years ago. Skakel is serving a 20-year sentence. His attorneys had argued that the statute of limitations on the crime had passed before he was arrested in January 2000.
The court also declined to review author Lewis Perdue’s contention that the blockbuster novel “The Da Vinci Code” is substantially similar to his own book, “Daughter of God.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
