3 Rulings by 9th Circuit Reversed

WASHINGTON —  The U.S. Supreme Court rebuked the federal appeals court in California on Monday for having wrongly ruled in favor of two Los Angeles-area murderers who had appealed their convictions earlier this year.

In a pair of unanimous decisions, the high court reversed the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and reinstated the convictions. In a third reversal -- also unanimous -- the justices said the 9th Circuit wrongly granted asylum to a Guatemalan immigrant.

It is rare for the high court to reverse a lower court’s ruling without hearing arguments in the case. But the justices did it three times Monday.

In all three rulings, the justices said the federal judges in California had exceeded their authority by second-guessing a state court or federal immigration authorities.

“This is a kind of a slap at the 9th Circuit, and a well-deserved slap in my view,” said Kent Scheidegger of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento.

State prosecutors said that they were pleased with the decisions and that they could speed the way to carrying out the death penalty.

California has by far the nation’s largest death row, with 612 people condemned to die. Yet executions are rare, largely because federal judges in California have been more willing to block state officials than their counterparts in Texas and Virginia.

“I think this is a very strong statement to the 9th Circuit that they have misapplied the deference standard,” said Dane Gillette, who heads the death penalty unit for the California attorney general.

He was referring to a 1996 law that tells federal judges that they should defer to the rulings of state courts.

The issue -- although technical -- is crucial in death penalty cases. It also reflects a long-running debate over how judges should decide an inmate’s challenge to an old conviction. Under the Habeas Corpus Act, state inmates can contest their cases in a federal court.

Some federal judges say their main duty is to uphold constitutional rights. If a state inmate appeals, these judges will reverse a conviction if they believe the inmate’s rights were violated.

But six years ago, the Republican-led Congress, at the urging of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, passed a law that amended the Habeas Corpus Act, making it harder for federal judges to reverse a conviction that was upheld by a state supreme court.

Proponents of the law cited the perennial disputes between California prosecutors and the 9th Circuit as a key reason for the measure.

The new law, the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, says federal judges should not take up an inmate’s case unless the state court’s ruling was “contrary to ... clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court.”

Despite that high barrier, the 9th Circuit’s judges have continued to reverse convictions from the California courts, to the dismay of state prosecutors and the Supreme Court.

The court’s action Monday revived a death sentence for John L. Visciotti, who robbed and shot two co-workers in Orange County in 1982.

He shot the two men repeatedly at close range and left them to die in Santiago Canyon. But one lived and testified against him. At his sentencing hearing, jurors were told that four years earlier, Visciotti had stabbed two other people, including a pregnant woman.

They sentenced him to die. The California Supreme Court upheld his conviction and death sentence in 1992 and rejected a habeas appeal in 1996.

In April, however, the 9th Circuit overturned Visciotti’s death sentence on the grounds that his lawyer failed to tell jurors about Visciotti’s drug use and his “absolutely horrendous family history.”

His attorney Roger Agajanian’s “performance during the penalty phase was deficient because he conducted essentially no investigation in search of mitigating evidence about Visciotti,” Judge Harry Pregerson said. He was joined by Judges A. Wallace Tashima and Marsha Berzon.

Pregerson said he would have gone further and reversed Visciotti’s conviction because of the failures of his lawyer.

California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer appealed and won a speedy reversal Monday.

“This decision exceeds the limits imposed on federal habeas review,” the justices said. Rather than defer to the California courts, the “9th Circuit ... ultimately substituted its own judgment for that of the state court.... The circumstances of the crime (a coldblooded execution-style killing and the attempted execution-style killing of another) coupled with the aggravating evidence of prior offenses (the knifing of one man and the stabbing of a pregnant woman trying to protect her unborn baby) was devastating,” the justices said.

These facts undoubtedly outweighed the concerns over Visciotti’s miserable family life. So, regardless of the lawyer’s performance, the jury was likely to return a death sentence in the case, the court concluded in Woodford vs. Visciotti.

Gillette, the California state attorney, said Monday’s decision clears the way for the state to execute Visciotti. “He has jumped to the top of the list” as the next person to die, he said.

Maria Stratton, the chief federal public defender in Los Angeles, said she was surprised by the high court’s decision.

The Visciotti case was a classic example of a defense lawyer “who had no idea how to do a death penalty case. For the Supreme Court to ignore that and throw it out on procedural grounds is very stunning,” she said.

The second ruling revived a long prison term for a Los Angeles drug dealer who broke into a Hollywood apartment in 1987 and shot two men, one of whom died.

In May, the 9th Circuit, in a 2-1 ruling, said drug dealer William Packer deserved a new trial because the judge in his original trial had pressured a holdout juror to continue deliberations. The next day, the jury returned a unanimous verdict against Packer.

Judges Pregerson and Stephen Reinhardt spoke for the majority in reversing Packer’s conviction. Both were appointees of President Carter. Judge Barry Silverman, a Clinton appointee, dissented.

“Because this decision [of the 9th Circuit] exceeds the limits imposed on federal habeas review ... we reverse,” the Supreme Court said in Early vs. Packer. The trial judge did not violate Packer’s rights when he urged the holdout to continue with deliberations, the justices said.

Recently, U.S. Solicitor Gen. Theodore B. Olson filed appeals in a series of asylum cases to challenge the 9th Circuit. Federal law says INS officials are to decide whether an asylum applicant faces political persecution if sent home, but the 9th Circuit has sided with numerous applicants whose claims were rejected.

In a third ruling Monday, the justices sided with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and reversed the 9th Circuit’s ruling that favored a Guatemalan immigrant.

By coincidence, the high court will hear arguments in a pair of cases Tuesday that involve California’s appeals of 9th Circuit rulings.

California’s “three strikes” law allows prosecutors to seek a life prison term for defendants who commit three felonies. In some instances, the third crime has been a petty theft. The 9th Circuit has reversed several sentences on the grounds that this amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

The justices will hear the state’s appeal in the case of Leandro Andrade on Tuesday.

Santa Clara University law professor Gerald Uelman said Monday’s decisions “do not bode well” for Andrade or for other state inmates challenging their death sentences.

“If the Supreme Court is saying [the state ruling] practically has to be irrational before you can come to a different conclusion, that is going to affect a lot of cases,” Uelman said. “They are sending a loud and clear message to the 9th Circuit” that they “are not being deferential enough on habeas reviews.”

But the news was not all bad for the 9th Circuit.

The justices refused to shield two deputies in Humboldt County who are being sued because they injected pepper spray into the eyes of several protesters who tried to block the cutting of ancient redwood trees.

The 9th Circuit, in still another opinion by Pregerson, ruled this police tactic “was plainly in excess of the force necessary under the circumstances.” Lawyers for Humboldt County urged the high court to take up their appeal and to block the trial. But without comment, the justices refused Monday.

Despite this action, the county remains free to appeal again if a jury sides with the protesters.