Court rejects mother’s appeal to stop son’s execution

Brendan Riley

Friday, March 26, 1999 | 1:57 a.m.

CARSON CITY, Nev. -- A federal appeals court in San Francisco today rejected efforts by the mother of a low-IQ man to stop his April 5 execution for the hammer and crowbar killings of two Reno U-Haul workers.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Lydia Calambro, who sought to intervene on behalf of her son Alvaro - who opposes any appeals that might stop his execution by injection at Nevada State Prison.

The mother's legal effort was rejected earlier by U.S. District Judge Howard McKibben of Reno, who ruled Calambro, 25, a native of the Philippines, may have a low IQ, personality disorders and difficulty understanding English but is still legally competent to decide his own fate.

"Calambro has accepted his sentence. The people of Nevada are entitled to have the sentence carried out," McKibben wrote.

The appeals court said McKibben's conclusion was supported by the evidence, including the findings of four mental health experts and Calambro's statements in court. Under questioning by McKibben last July, Calambro said he had "freedom of choice," said he believed in the Bible, and declared, "The sentence of death is just."

"There is ample evidence in the record that Alvaro Calambro is competent to appreciate his position and make a rational decision to forgo further proceedings," the circuit court wrote today. "Lydia Calambro has failed to meet her burden of showing that Alvaro Calambro is unable to litigate his own cause due to mental incapacity."

The federal court rulings follow a Nevada Supreme Court finding last year that Calambro may hear voices, be borderline mentally retarded and suffer from schizophrenia but that doesn't mean "he could not distinguish reality from any delusions."

The killings occurred January 1994 during a $2,400 robbery at the U-Haul business where Calambro's crime partner, Duc Huynh, had just been fired.

Peggy Crawford had a tire iron driven through her skull. Keith Christopher's head was crushed by repeated blows with a ball-peen hammer.

Huynh also got a death sentence, but hanged himself at Ely State Prison.

Public defenders argued unsuccessfully that Calambro has been diagnosed repeatedly as mentally ill and that he believes his death sentence can't be wrong because anything the government says must be true.

Defenders also said Calambro has admitted to a prison ps hearing.