U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear two Nevada death row cases

RENO, Nev. -- The U.S. Supreme Court today refused without comment to hear the appeals on behalf of Nevada death-row inmates Alvaro Calambro and William B. Leonard.

Calambro, 25, was sentenced to die for the January 1994 murders of Peggy Crawford and Keith Christopher at a Reno U-Haul business.

Ms. Crawford's head was split open with a tire iron and Christopher's was crushed by a hammer during a robbery that netted just $2,400.

Calambro's cohort, Duc Huynh, was also sentenced to death but killed himself at Ely State Prison.

Calambro has said he wants to die for the murders. But his mother, Lydia Calambro, is trying to block his execution, claiming her son is mentally ill and does not know what he's doing.

There has been testimony that Calambro is mentally retarded and a borderline schizophrenic. But prosecutors and a majority of Nevada's Supreme Court has determined that doesn't mean he isn't competent to decide whether he wants to appeal his death sentence.

In the other case rejected by the nation's high court, Leonard argued he had ineffective legal counsel when he was sentenced to die for stabbing another convict 21 times with a prison-made knife in 1987.

It was his third murder conviction and his second for a stabbing death of another prisoner.

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