Extradition of Condemned Prisoner Blocked

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court on Monday blocked the extradition to South Carolina of a condemned prisoner charged with murdering three Domino’s Pizza employees in two states.

Mitchell Sims has been sentenced to death for the December, 1985, murder of a pizza deliveryman in a Glendale motel room and is charged with killing two employees of the same company six days earlier in Hanahan, S.C., a suburb of Charleston. He could be sentenced to death if convicted of those murders.

A witness at Sims’ trial in Los Angeles Superior Court said Sims held a grudge against Domino’s from the time that he worked as a manager of one of its outlets in West Columbia, S.C., and quit over a reduction in bonus payments.

Sims and Ruby Padgett were convicted of tying up and drowning a man who was delivering a pizza to them in their motel room.

Smith was sentenced to death last September by Superior Court Judge Jack Tso; Padgett was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Approved by Deukmejian

Sims’ extradition to South Carolina has been approved by Gov. George Deukmejian but was stayed Monday by the state Supreme Court while it reviews his request to remain in California during the appeal of his Los Angeles death sentence.

The court could take up to 90 days to decide whether to grant a hearing in the case.

Lawyers for Sims said in papers filed with the court that his presence would help them work on his appeal, correct any errors in the trial record and provide information for further investigations or defenses that might not have been pursued at trial.

They noted that South Carolina had requested Sims’ extradition in January, 1986, but that Deukmejian had not acted on the request for two years.

They also contended that under California law, a condemned prisoner must remain on Death Row in San Quentin until the sentence is overturned or carried out.

Two lower courts have rejected those arguments and upheld the extradition order.