Justices Back Ruling Ordering Retrial of Death Penalty Cases

The U.S. Supreme Court today let stand a California case that will require nearly complete retrials for scores of defendants sentenced to death or life imprisonment.

With no recorded dissents or explanation, the high court refused to hear the California attorney general’s petition to take up the case of Lawrence Garcia, whose life sentence was upset by the state Supreme Court last August.

In Garcia’s appeal, the state high court applied retroactively one of its earlier decisions that prosecutors must prove specifically that defendants intended to murder their victims before they can be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.

Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp has said that the court’s decision to apply the intent ruling retroactively will require virtual retrials for as many as 95 defendants sentenced to death and 85 defendants sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Other court rulings, Page 2.