CALIFORNIA HIGH COURT REVERSES 2 DEATH PENALTY CONVICTIONS.

Byline: Bob Egelko Associated Press 

The state Supreme Court unanimously overturned two death sentences Thursday, finding serious errors by prosecutors and judges in a murder-for-hire conviction in San Mateo County and a case of four slayings in Los Angeles.

In the San Mateo case, the court said the prosecutor promised not to use a pretrial statement given by defendant Drax Quartermain, then introduced it into evidence with the judge's approval when Quartermain gave conflicting testimony.

In the Los Angeles case, the court said the prosecutor at Darren Charles Williams' second trial told the jury only that Williams had been convicted of taking part in the four slayings. He was not required to present any evidence of intent to kill, an essential element in a capital case against a nontriggerman, the court said.

Quartermain's ruling entitles him to a new trial on both guilt and punishment. Williams' murder convictions remain intact, punishable by at least 25 years to life.

The court did not decide whether prosecutors could seek a new death sentence against Williams, a question that depends on whether the constitutional ban on double jeopardy forbids presentation of new evidence of intent to kill. Williams' appellate lawyer, Nicholas Arguimbau, said he also has asked the court to overturn the convictions because of an alleged admission of perjury by a prosecution witness.

The last time the court overturned two death sentences on a single day was in July 1988. The justices have upheld 11 of the 14 death sentences they have considered this year.

Williams, 37, was convicted of the August 1984 killings of Ebora Alexander, 58, her daughter and two grandsons in a South Central Los Angeles home. The victims were all relatives of former pro football player Kermit Alexander.

Prosecutors said the killers had been looking for another woman, who had sued a local nightclub, but went to the wrong house. Tiequon Cox, convicted of being the gunman, was also sentenced to death and lost an appeal before the state's high court in 1991.

Williams, who witnesses said was looking for the house with Cox and who admitted being in the house, was convicted of intentionally aiding in the murders.

At his first trial, the jury deadlocked on the question of whether the multiple killings were capital charges, a finding that required proof of intent to kill. In a retrial, Superior Court Commissioner Florence-Marie Cooper, the presiding judge, ruled that Williams' intent to kill had been established by his earlier convictions and required no additional evidence. The jury found the murders to be capital charges and sentenced him to death.

The Supreme Court overruled Cooper and said Williams' intent to kill, required for a death sentence as a nontriggerman, had not been conclusively proved at the first trial.

Although the prosecutor had argued that Williams shared Cox's intent to kill everyone in the house, the first jury was not required to accept that argument to convict him, said the court in its ruling.