Court won’t rehear mother’s appeal to stop son’s execution

Brendan Riley

Monday, March 29, 1999 | 5:01 a.m.

CARSON CITY, Nev. - A rehearing petition filed by the mother of a low-IQ man to stop his April 5 execution for the hammer-crowbar killings of two Reno U-Haul workers was rejected Monday by a federal appeals court.

The action by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco followed its ruling Friday against Lydia Calambro, who tried to intervene on behalf of her son Alvaro.

Calambro, 25, opposes any appeals that might stop his execution by injection at Nevada State Prison.

Michael Pescetta, the deputy federal public defender handling Lydia Calambro's petition, said he'll now appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Calambro, a Filipino national, also is getting support from his country's ambassador in Washington, D.C.. Raul Rabe has scheduled a visit with Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn Friday to ask that Calambro not be executed the day after Easter.

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

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."

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.

Pescetta says 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.

The defender also said Calambro has admitted to a prison psychologist that he made up some things that may have contributed to his receiving the death sentence during his initial penalty hearing.