CALIFORNIA:
Death sentence vacated for poor jury instructions
A man convicted of bludgeoning a young woman to death with an iron bar
during a burglary had his death sentence overturned Tuesday by a federal
appeals court that found the jury had not received proper instructions
during the penalty phase of the trial.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the jury in the murder trial
of Fernando Belmontes, Jr., 42, should have been required to consider his
principal mitigation evidence - that he would adapt well to prison and
lead a constructive life behind bars if incarcerated for life.
"This has been a long time coming. I've represented Fernando for 21
years and I'm so happy he gets another chance at a life sentence,"
said Belmontes' lawyer, Eric Multhaup.
It's now up to the San Joaquin County district attorney's office to
decide whether to retry Belmontes for 1st-degree murder and go for the
death penalty again, or to let a default sentence of life without the
possibility of parole stand.
The district attorney's office said it would need to review the appeals
court ruling further before commenting, a spokeswoman said.
The ruling orders a federal district court to vacate Belmontes' death
sentence. The appeals court, however, rejected Belmontes' effort to have
his conviction overturned, rejecting the claim that his constitutional
rights were violated.
Belmontes was found guilty in the beating death of 19-year-old Steacy
McConnell, a casual acquaintance. Belmontes was one of three men who went
to McConnell's home in Victor with the intention of burglarizing it on
March 15, 1981, the day of the killing. The other 2 co-defendants were
Robert Bolanos and Domingo Vasquez.
Bolanos and Vasquez had attended a party at McConnell's home a week
earlier, but were thrown out after Vasquez stole some "black beauties,"
or amphetamine pills, from McConnell, according to testimony.
Each of the three was charged with first-degree murder, but Bolanos cut a
plea deal and testified against the other two, fingering Belmontes as the
main assailant.
Vasquez pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder, leaving Belmontes alone to
proceed to trial on the 1st-degree murder charge with special
circumstances. Belmontes was found guilty and sentenced to death on Oct 6,
1982.
The majority of the appeals court found that if the jury had been
properly instructed that it could have considered evidence that Belmontes
could function effectively in prison, it might have returned a different
verdict.
The jury instructions appeared to limit what the jury could consider in
determining Belmontes' fate, his lawyer said.
"It strongly encouraged them to ignore (mitigating evidence) and to
stick to the statutory list of factors, which doesn't authorize
consideration of rehabilitation or becoming a positive influence in the
prison population," Multhaup said.
In his partial dissent, Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain disagreed, calling
the majority's conclusion that the jury was confused "simply beyond
belief."
"The jury, in reality, returned a death sentence for Belmontes, not
because of a confusing jury instruction, but because he murdered
19-year-old Steacy McConnell in cold blood, striking her 15-20 times in
the head with an iron dumbbell he had brought with him to her house in
case of such an encounter," O'Scannlain wrote.
The case is Belmontes v.
Woodford, 01-99018.
TIMES
CALIFORNIA - U.S. Appeals Court Voids Death Penalty in '81
Killing
A federal appeals court Tuesday overturned the death
sentence of a man who has spent 21 years on death row for beating a woman
to death with an iron bar, ruling that the judge at his trial violated his
constitutional rights by not fully instructing the jury to consider all
possible mitigating evidence before passing sentence.
The ruling was the 12th by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the
last year and a half that either reversed a death sentence or upheld the
decision of a federal trial judge who had overturned a death sentence in a
California case. Two of those rulings have been overturned by the U.S.
Supreme Court. The 9th Circuit has upheld four California death sentences
in the same period.
Tuesday's 2-1 decision was written by Judge Stephen Reinhardt, a Jimmy
Carter appointee who is one of the court's most consistent skeptics about
the validity of death sentences. He was jointed by Judge Richard A. Paez,
a Clinton appointee. Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain, a Ronald Reagan appointee
who consistently votes to uphold death sentences, issued a strong dissent.
The 42-year-old defendant, Fernando Belmontes Jr., was 19 when he and two
other young men went to the home of Steacy McConnell in Victor, just east
of Lodi in 1981, intending to steal her stereo in the aftermath of an
argument over drugs, according to testimony in his trial.
One of Belmontes' accomplices, who said he was the lookout at the robbery
and made a plea bargain with prosecutors, testified that Belmontes entered
the home, not expecting to find McConnell. He emerged shortly afterward
spattered with blood and saying that he had needed to "take out a
witness."
McConnell's parents found their daughter lying in a pool of blood. An
autopsy determined that her skull had been shattered by 15 to 20 blows.
After finding Belmontes guilty, jurors heard extensive testimony about
Belmontes' background before deliberating six hours and voting in favor of
a death sentence.
Belmontes' conviction and his death sentence were upheld by the California
Supreme Court and a federal district court judge.
The 9th Circuit upheld the conviction but toppled the death sentence in a
lengthy opinion.
The key issue for the court involved the instructions that the judge at
Belmontes' trial gave to jurors about how to weigh the evidence on whether
they should spare his life.
That evidence included testimony that Belmontes had a record of violence,
which included slugging his wife when she was four months pregnant,
pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact to voluntary
manslaughter and taking a gun from another man who had offered to sell it
to him.
The jurors also heard that Belmontes, who dropped out of school in the
ninth grade, had a family history of poverty and violence.
His trial lawyer, who asked the jury to sentence Belmontes to life in
prison without parole, rather than death, also presented what the appeals
court called substantial evidence that Belmontes could lead a constructive
life if he was kept behind bars.
During four months in custody at a California Youth Authority facility the
year before the murder, Belmontes worked his way up to a position of
leadership in the camp's fire crew. A youth authority chaplain testified
that he should not be executed because he was a salvageable person with
"a lot of extenuating circumstances in his life."
Several witnesses testified that Belmontes became a Christian while
incarcerated by the CYA then failed to maintain his religious commitment
after being released.
Belmontes told the jury that he did not think his difficult childhood
excused his role in McConnell's murder.
He told jurors that he could not withstand the pressures of life outside
prison but asked them to give him "an opportunity to achieve goals
and try to better" himself.
When the testimony was over, the trial judge gave the jurors a set of
standard instructions telling them to consider as mitigating evidence the
defendant's age, criminal history and any "other circumstance which
extenuates the gravity of the crime even though it is not a legal excuse
for the crime."
But the judge declined to give the jury what the appeals court declared to
be the most important part of another instruction requested by the defense.
That instruction would have told the jurors that "you should not
limit your consideration of mitigating circumstances to these specific
factors. You may also consider any other circumstances as reasons for not
imposing the death sentence."
The importance of that catchall instruction, which is listed in
California's death penalty law, cannot be overstated, Reinhardt wrote.
A reasonable probability exists that the judge's refusal to give the
instruction affected the jury's decision, Reinhardt held.
"To pass constitutional muster, the trial judge's instructions must
convey to the jury" that they are free "to consider all relevant
mitigating evidence," he wrote.
In his dissent, O'Scannlain said, "the majority strains mightily �
and unpersuasively � to perceive constitutional error in the
comprehensive and perfectly proper jury instructions given by the state
trial judge."
"There is no reason to think that the jury would have thought it was
foreclosed from using" the testimony that it heard, O'Scannlain wrote.
Belmontes' history of "violent, antisocial behavior, not an ambiguous
jury instruction," put him on death row, O'Scannlain concluded.
The California attorney general's office had no immediate comment.
Eric Multhaup, an attorney from Mill Valley who has represented Belmontes
for 21 years on appeal, said: "I am very happy that he will get a
second chance at a life verdict."
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