WASHINGTON — For the third time, the Supreme Court on Monday reversed the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and restored a death sentence for a California murderer who bludgeoned a young woman in 1981 to steal a stereo from her house.
The justices, in a unanimous, unsigned opinion, rejected the notion that Fernando Belmontes should be spared because his lawyer had failed him by not presenting mitigating evidence about Belmontes’ childhood.
“It is hard to imagine . . . additional facts about Belmontes’ difficult childhood outweighing the facts of (Steacy) McConnell’s murder,” the justices said. “We agree with the state court’s characterization of the murder (as one of ‘extraordinary brutality’) and simply cannot comprehend the assertion by the Court of Appeals that this case did not involve ‘needless suffering.’ “
Belmontes broke into McConnell’s home in the small central California town of Victor and struck her in the head 15 or 20 times with a steel barbell, crushing her skull. She put up “a desperate struggle for (her) life,” the court said but died a few hours later. Belmontes and two accomplices sold her stereo for $100 and used the money to buy beer and drugs.
A jury convicted Belmontes and condemned him to die in 1982, and the California Supreme Court affirmed his sentence in 1988. Since then, the case has been on appeal in the federal courts.
Under the Habeas Corpus Act, state defendants can sue in a federal court and argue they are being punished in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Three times in this decade, the 9th Circuit Court ruled in favor of Belmontes and set aside his death sentence. In the first two decisions, the appeals court said jurors may have thought they could not weigh evidence about Belmontes’ conversion to Christianity as a reason for sparing his life.
On Monday, the justices disagreed again. In a 14-page opinion, they concluded it was “fanciful” to believe jurors would have spared Belmontes had they heard more about his childhood.
The case illustrates the continuing dispute over the death penalty between state prosecutors and federal judges in California. The state has 685 inmates on death row, by far the most in the nation. Yet, executions are rare. Since capital punishment was restored in 1977, the state has carried out 13 executions. Many of the cases have remained tied up in federal litigation for decades.
Other court action
• Book on Cuba: The Supreme Court on Monday opted to stay out of a dispute in Miami between school officials and civil libertarians over a book about Cuba that depicts smiling children in communist uniforms but avoids mention of problems in the country.The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida sought to prevent Miami officials from removing the book from library shelves. The Miami-Dade County School District board voted to remove the book after a parent who spent time as a political prisoner in Cuba complained.
• Redskins’ name: The court declined to revive a lawsuit on behalf of Native American activists who claimed that the Washington Redskins’ football team name is so offensive that it does not deserve trademark protection. The court without comment refused to get involved in the long-running dispute. The decision essentially lets stand a lower-court ruling that the activists waited too long to bring the challenge.
• Student appeal: Justices rejected an appeal from a Henderson, Nev., student who complained that high school officials violated her constitutional rights when they turned off her microphone during her religion-tinged graduation speech.
• Death decision: The court will decide whether Billy Joe Magwood should be put to death for fatally shooting an Alabama sheriff 30 years ago. The Supreme Court refused to hear Magwood’s appeal of his conviction in 1997. But a federal judge overturned his death sentence that year, saying Alabama had changed its laws to make Magwood’s crime a capital offense after it had already been committed.
