Remarks
by
Jay
B Gaskill
Former
Alameda County Public Defender
I.
This
discussion is not about whether we should have the death penalty. It is a form of witness about how one jury
trial helped form my spiritual path. There are secrets I still must keep. This was a death penalty murder case that
attracted a good deal of notoriety. Important details and all names have been
altered to protect the privacy of the parties. “The “Jefferson Matley” trial was from the very beginning, about whether my
client would be sentenced to death.
When the Matley crime
spree is tightly summarized, the picture is not pretty:
A home invasion
through bedroom window in which a girl
was made to give up her parent’s jewelry, then was assaulted, bound, gagged,
shot and left for dead;
A few weeks later a
woman burglary victim was found dead in her closet;
A month later a woman’s
business was invaded at gunpoint, both ladies shot, one left dead in a closet,
the other lived to summon the police;
Soon after that, a
woman was killed during a burglary of her home.
These were execution
style killings.
I have cut close to the
edge here, because of my intimate knowledge.
But my narrative is crafted so that it could have been reconstructed
from police reports, press accounts, court records.
The killings had gotten blanket media coverage,
television, radio and print, until the crime spree ended with a helicopter
manhunt and, finally, an arrest.
Jefferson Matley was a black male in his early
20’s, good looking, not someone you’d immediately type as a hell raiser or
pathological murderer. Jefferson was
raised in a small family by a mother whom we’ll be calling “B”. She was a piece of work and would figure
prominently in the penalty trial.
A California death penalty case starts with a first
degree murder charge and an additional allegation, the special circumstances
that trigger the ultimate penalty. The trigger
is the announcement by the DA that the death penalty will be sought. All special circumstance cases require at
least life in prison without parole.
In a California death penalty case there are two
trials before the same jury, the first on the guilt issue and the second, after
a brief recess, whenever any special circumstance has been found true, on the death
penalty question
The public defender intake file was dropped on my
desk one morning after the 6, 10 and 11 O’clock news on all Bay Area channels
had covered Jefferson’s arraignment. It was a skinny manila folder. Three and a
half years later, Jefferson Matley’s files would fill
the file boxes that lined one entire wall of my office. As was the practice, I immediately
selected my second chair counsel; a lead investigator was assigned and began work.
Several defense investigators worked on some aspect of Jefferson’s case.
According to the prosecution, Jefferson Matley had broken into three homes and one business, and on
each occasion shot everyone there at close range before leaving with money or
other valuables. There were three dead
bodies and two who had been left for dead. Another way to describe these plucky
survivors: live witnesses. A chilling piece of this, one I didn’t learn
about for a few days: In one of the burglaries, a girl was home alone. She was tied up on a bed then shot through
the torso. After a time, her would-be
killer asked, “Are you all right?” Wisely she did not answer.
Ironically, I had represented young Jefferson in
juvenile court, one of hundreds of cases where a kid is brought to Juvenile
Hall for stealing or something else, held for a while until some parent or
guardian takes custody again. There was
very little remarkable about that case.
The hardened young man who was arraigned for these
murders had a cautious poise about him, his appraising eyes looking back and
forth around the courtroom. I should tell you about eyes. Prisoners in his
situation rarely get see the outdoors at all at all. Their arrival in a
courtroom expands the field of vision several fold, so their eyes dark around
the expanded space. When I first met
Jefferson Matley in jail– there is no other way to
put it – I noticed that he had dead eyes.
These eyes were attentive, but they failed to betray any human caring. It was as if there was something missing
behind them. I quickly buried that
impression. It would do nothing but get in the way over the next series of
interviews; many talks with Jefferson would be needed to build confidence and
trust. But a couple of months later
someone associated with the case took me aside and said, “Jay, did you see
those dead eyes? Those are the eyes of a killer.” I shrugged. I was well beyond
that.
II.
No one has quite defined the limits of mercy to the
satisfaction of a death penalty defense attorney. So no biographical stone is
left unturned in the hope of uncovering the key to persuading at least one
juror (it takes twelve to execute) to spare the client’s life. Delay is most
helpful when the time is used well by the defense. There is the matter of possible character
transformation. The decision to execute is more difficult for many jurors when
the defendant before them has changed for the better - no longer the “same
person” as the killer. No one can really orchestrate this transformation, which
– truth be told – is quite rare.
We used our long pretrial delay to good purpose. Obtaining
a truthful and complete biography of someone who has had several brushes with
the law is more difficult than it sounds because you are trying to get to the
back story, the material that never finds its way into a probation report, news
story or police report. In Jefferson’s case, it took us several weeks and a
court order to acquire all of his archived juvenile records. But we did find the defense equivalent of pay
dirt, although we did not immediately recognize it for what it was.
Jefferson’s mother, who I am calling “B”, would turn
out to be a key to understanding Jefferson’s behavior. Now, a difficult
childhood is the most common back story of almost all the criminals I’ve
represented. But a “troubled childhood” is more common than many people
realize, rarely amounting to enough to mitigate punishment. There are so many counter-examples: the life
stories of high achievers who came from equally troubled backgrounds. Not even a brutally deficient childhood
amounts to a free pass when sentencing time arrives. That acknowledged - something in Jefferson’s
history seemed unusually important.
III.
After Jefferson’s arrest for the murders, his mother,
“B”, started haranguing the authorities for the return of jewelry the police
had seized at their apartment. These
valuables were being held as evidence in the belief that they were stolen goods
that Jefferson had brought home for his mother. To the police, “B” appeared to
be far more concerned about these jewels than her son’s fate. Make a note.
When Jefferson was in his early teens, he got in
trouble for a number of “small” things (the sorts of offenses that would send
middle class parents into therapy, but in the Matley
family were a bit more like schoolyard pranks). About this time, B took up with
a good man.
The man we’ll call “Abe” was a solid African
American coach who had taken a special interest in young Jefferson, whom he
recognized as a bright kid, with promising athletic talent, but problems in
school. Abe and Jefferson quickly formed a father-son bond. Abe insisted that
Jefferson buckle down, study and get good grades. But the ever mercurial B dumped Abe, then
contacted Jefferson’s probation officer, claiming that Abe was a bad influence.
The PO cooperated with Mom: As a result Abe was barred from contact with
Jefferson. Jefferson’s next run of
offenses were more serious. While in
Juvenile Hall, a contract psychologist “Dr. Hall” did a careful diagnostic
workup. His conclusion was striking. The
family dynamic was so bad that Hall made a prediction: If Jefferson was not taken away
from his mother’s influence, his crimes would be increasingly violent and all
the victims would be women. Make
a note.
IV.
Jefferson was committed to the California Youth
Authority. His tour there would be a way
station – as so often is the case with others –on his way to state prison.
But I refuse to believe that it had to turn out that
way, especially if the system had been capable of following Dr. Hall’s advice. But the Juvenile system is famous for soliciting
psychological advice that it is incapable of implementing. There was one more
notable event in Jefferson’s life, even in Youth Authority: Another male
counselor established a fatherly relationship with Jefferson. In the
disciplined camp environment, Jefferson actually
thrived, achieving good grades and a strong work ethic. The bond of trust with his counselor was such
that one day Jefferson warned him of an escape plan. Being a “snitch” in YA is
hazardous to one’s health. I am morally
certain that Jefferson made the warning because he trusted his counselor and
because he knew it was the right thing. As a result of Jefferson’s tip-off, the
escape never took place, and lives were probably saved.
When Jefferson was eventually paroled from Youth Authority,
he lost all contact with the counselor.
After all, he was now a full-fledged adult in the eyes of the law. Jefferson Matley
went straight to his mother’s house, the very place
Dr. Hall’s report suggested would be toxic.
Dr. Hall had predicted more trouble…
“The victims will be women…” Make a note. As I read this narrative from
the YA reports, I could almost hear the ticking of the bomb…
V.
Soon after Jefferson Matley
was released to his mother’s home, he was arrested. In a way, the arrest was a Godsend -- given
Dr. Halls’ ominous prediction. It was a
non-violent felony theft. Because of Jefferson’s poor performance on YA parole
and his prior record, he was sentenced to state prison. California prisons are little different from
those in other states; rehabilitation is left to self-help for the most
part. Jefferson was sent to a medium
security facility and his term there was relatively short. Three years passed.
In his early twenties, Jefferson was, once again, a
paroled prisoner. Like the moth to the
flame (truthfully where else would he go?) he returned to live with Mother B.
A high percentage of stranger killings get the death
penalty. The victims are chosen
randomly, directly by the killer, or serendipitously by the circumstances of
the confrontation between victim and killer.
There is little room for the traditional mitigating factors such as the
prior quarrel, the sudden rage triggered by jealousy, in other words, for any
of the things that allow us, as fellow human beings, to achieve some small
understanding of how one person comes to take the life of another. The women that
Jefferson killed were randomly chosen, a theft, robbery or burglary victim who
had the misfortune to witness the crime.
When plotted on a calendar, these crimes erupted in a series not long
after Jefferson arrived in his mother’s home as a paroled inmate. From a
sentencing juror’s perspective, there would be no reason that they would not
have continued until the perpetrator was arrested. These are the things that fill the dark
thoughts of a defense attorney early in the case.
VI.
A firm trial date loomed. Sometime before that, by an incremental
process that escapes day-to-day notice, a change had taken place: Jefferson’s eyes were no longer dead. I began to ask him obliquely some “what’s
this all about?” questions. I was casual
and seemingly off point in this exploration, but I was driven by an intense
curiosity. I have heard too many
criminal defendants offering lame excuses, picking up the very rhetoric of
moral relativism, parroting what they’d heard about the “evils” of the system. The
telltale sign is when they speak of themselves in the passive voice as if there
were no doer, not actor inside who is responsible for the crimes charged.
Something had gradually emerged from our
conversations. My impression gradually solidified that Jefferson had reached a
serene understanding of his moral situation. His insight seemed to be that it
really would be understandable, even
proper, if the jury and court imposed the death penalty following a guilty
verdict. This was conveyed without any trace of whining, nor any sense of
suicidal resignation. Yes, Jefferson
wanted very much to live.
In contrast, many who face death row eventually
succumb to pending execution fatigue and lose the will to live. Members of this group tend to decide that if
they can’t have life on their terms – more or less outside with their peers
doing the things that they’ve always been able to get away with – then in
effect they say, “Screw this. Just put me to sleep.”
Of course, Jefferson hoped for mercy, but he did not
expect it because he seemed to know that he did not deserve it. Jefferson
appeared to really understand why he
was not entitled to mercy, and for that matter, why he was very unlikely to
receive it. The surest sign of an authentic moral epiphany is the full
acceptance of moral responsibility for all one’s actions without excuses.
This sort of transformation is the very kind of
thing you can never fully prove. Gallows
repentance is always suspicious. And Serenity? Acceptance of one’s impossible moral situation? A recovery of the human light behind the eyes? You’ve got to
be kidding.
I was eventually to discover something Jefferson had
been holding back from us.
VII.
Ballistics showed that the same weapon was used in
each incident; and Jefferson’s fingerprints were recovered. Ultimately
Jefferson was arrested on a tip. There followed a series of incriminating
events, one positive lineup identification, an interrogation in which Jefferson
made significant admissions. And so on.
This was about as grim a trial picture as it gets in a death penalty defense
case. As the deadline trial date approached, we carefully reviewed Jefferson’s entire
record of adjustment to custody, including in the country jail, awaiting trial. Based on his YA experience, I hoped to be
able to argue at penalty phase (in the event of the expected conviction) that,
however bad his behavior was out of custody, my client could be counted on to
be a model inmate. In fact, his county jail custody record was a good one.
It was in this grim, grasping-for-straws context
that I learned from sheriff’s personnel that Jefferson had been busy for years
with religious
study and reflection, and that he’d set up private worship services with one
or two other inmates on a regular basis. My initial take on this was
skeptical. But the more people we
interviewed, the more persuaded I became that Jefferson had embarked on an
authentic spiritual quest, that it was part and parcel of the moral recovery
I’d observed, and that his conversion was the real deal. When I finally
confronted Jefferson, I asked him why he had not revealed this to us.
He
told me that it would have seemed hypocritical.
Make a note.
We drew up a witness list that included the juvenile
psychologist, the other elements of Jefferson’s social history, his YA
experiences and the new “religious” witnesses.
I was personally persuaded of the merits but I was hardly
confident. Most juries, most of the time
will dismiss this sort of thing out of hand- voting for execution and “let God
sort it out.”
VIII.
The jury trial took about six months, much of it for
jury selection.
Eventually the jury got the guilt case. After a
respectable period of deliberation, they found Jefferson Matley
guilty on everything except one felony count, an acquittal on a questionable
sexual assault charge. It would hardly matter in the big picture.
The jury was now a unified body: Twelve, cold-faced
citizens who now knew beyond any reasonable doubt that the killer who had done
these terrible things was sitting right next to me. I watched them as they
began studying Jefferson Matley more closely. We had
the weekend to recoup.
IX.
The penalty phase began on Monday.The
prosecution, having already presented devastating evidence about the crimes,
needed to show the jury very little more for the penalty phase. So it quickly turned to the defense to
proceed. We now needed to present the
whole picture, the social history of the crimes, the setting for our plea for
mercy.
Any effective social history benefits from a
qualified story teller, sufficiently detached to be credible, sufficiently
engaged to be effective. I did not call Mother B as historian. It would have
been a disaster. The social historian is often a hired expert witness with
credentials in sociology or psychology who draws together and narrates the
defendant’s biography, many of which also have to be independently proved. We chose not to hire someone to do that task,
but relied instead on well-placed witnesses who could explain the family
dynamic and help place Jefferson’s horrific crimes into a more understandable
human context. We also needed to describe his later moral rehabilitation.
In this effort, we were greatly assisted by two men,
both of whom were reluctant participants: the psychologist who had evaluated
Jefferson as a juvenile (we’re calling him Dr. Hall); and the Sheriff’s
Department jail chaplain.
The chaplain had become aware of Jefferson’s religious
awakening, but had little or no part in instigating it. As a county employee,
he was an ideal witness to describe Matley’s
spiritual activities over the three years he was a prisoner awaiting trial. But
the chaplain’s participation in our defense case trial even under subpoena was
problematic because senior officers in the Sheriff’s Department were keen on
keeping their employed chaplains out of the courtroom.
Dr. Hall was an impressive figure: As a tall,
dignified African American man with a no non-nonsense attitude, he could not
have been better cast for the role.
Except…had he been on the jury, he would have leaned toward
execution. Like many practical minded
Christians I’ve known, Hall lived and talked a robust, real world morality, the
kind of tough love / rule-and- consequences attitude shared by so many lay Christians
who toil in the vineyards of criminal life (I think of church going Irish cops,
for example). Dr. Hall believed in capital punishment and made it very clear to
me that if asked he would truthfully answer: Jefferson Matley’s
murders had earned him a place on death row.
I was advised not to call Hall as a witness. I rejected the advice. Dr.
Hall was the archetype of the father that Jefferson needed but never had. I decided that Hall would testify for the
defense at penalty phase, and let the chips fall where they may.
The penalty phase defense case lasted into the
second week. Before we called our last
witness, my co-counsel remarked at the good chemistry we’d observed between Dr.
Hall and the jurors. He had done a brilliant job in conveying the ugly dynamic
between mother B and son, including Jefferson’s misplaced sense of loyalty to
her. He’d also managed to convey his own
sense of disgust at young Matley’s crimes and – without
explicitly saying so – conveyed to the jury that life or death would be a reasonable penalty choice. I was still comfortable
with that testimony.
The chaplain’s testimony was less effective for the
same reason that Hall’s was a hit. The
chaplain wore his mercy-for-all sensibility on his sleeve. I’m sure it goes with the job, but the price
is an ineradicable dissonance with the common sense morality of the so called
“ordinary” people. I knew that Jefferson’s fate would not be decided as a
result of individual opinions or entreaties – the weeping mothers of the world
notwithstanding. It would be the total
gestalt of Jefferson’s case that would matter the most, and that most
unquantifiable, elusive element of all: one’s sense of moral appropriateness.
Ironically, the absence of a
mother seemingly capable of weeping for her son would be part of that gestalt
and sense of moral appropriateness.
For those jurors not totally closed to the
possibility of mitigation, we had demonstrated things as well any they could
ever be, given the inherent limitations of the available evidence: We showed
that the horrors that Matley perpetrated were the
result of a moral perversion that, however awful and reprehensible, was in the
last analysis the product of a common human frailty.
We showed that young Jefferson was subject to a
strange kind of malevolent duress, one that helped explain the evil that
followed without materially diluting his accountability for it. We gave the
jury evidence that sparing this young man from the executioner would be safe to
do; that his execution was not necessary to save additional lives. We showed that
Jefferson Matley had undergone a significant moral
reformation, one of sufficient magnitude and authenticity that the person
facing the executioner was really changed; that Jefferson’s own homicidal acts
years earlier would be “out of character” for the young man now sitting at
counsel table awaiting judgment.
But we knew one more thing. It would be perfectly
reasonable for every juror to agree with our case and still say: “So what? Too many dead
people. Too much damage to the innocent. Leave mercy to God.”
The penalty jury was out for a full week before the
signs of internal disagreement began to surface. From their questions, their faces and some
other hints we began to glean in the second week of deliberations that there
was a slow but inexorable progress toward unanimity: they were going toward death.
It has been the experience of most trial lawyers that
cases almost never hang up without a small community of dissenters,
usually two or more. It is extremely
difficult to hold your ground in a group without having the moral support of a
small sub-group to which you belong.
When the minority begins to lose members, the slide is often
precipitous. The trial court, having used up six months of precious resources,
was reluctant to declare a mistrial.
The pressure to reach a verdict was huge. Imagine
our surprise when after two full weeks of discussions, the jury ended
deadlocked, 11-1 for death.
A post jury interview revealed that most jurors
thought Jefferson’s conversion was probably real, but not enough to warrant
mercy. Given the magnitude of the case, one vote was far too little dissent to
dissuade further prosecution. There would be more trials….
X.
The next trial took place the following year. I had
become unavailable, having been appointed chief Public Defender
by the Board of supervisors. So we
referred Matley’s to the county death penalty
panel. Two excellent choices from the
list of death penalty appointment eligible trial lawyers were assigned. We gave
them everything, investigation results, the trial strategy, the full
transcripts. Everything that could conceivably help the new defense team was
provided. After that, the Matley defense dropped off
my radar, though never out of my mind.
The second trial went much like ours had except that
the jury still heard the guilt phase evidence to show them in detail what Matley had been convicted of doing and why they were being
given the penalty decision.
The new team’s penalty defense followed our playbook
-- the same witnesses, the same narrativves and the same theories of mitigation.
…And the same outcome. I mean exactly
the same outcome ensued. After a long
deliberation, the new jury deadlocked as the last one had: 11-1 for death.
Suddenly we learned that the lead trial DA (we’ll
call him “Grayfox”, one of their most experienced
prosecutors – he looked like the DA in one of those 60’s TV series) announced
his forthcoming retirement. The courthouse rumor mill went on
overdrive. Surely the DA’s office would
throw in the towel (allowing a life without parole sentence) rather than bring
in a new prosecutor.
That was not to be:
Grayfox offered to return from retirement without salary just to try this case a
third time. His office readily
agreed.
The following year, the third jury was selected in
the case. Neither side had much new to present, except the hope of selecting a
“better” jury.
Mirabile dictu,
it was another 11-1 deadlock for death.
I was in my office on the second floor of the
courthouse when I heard the news from the ninth floor. The DA’s office would
not seek a fourth trial, which meant that the trial court would impose life
without parole. In three years, 33 jurors had voted to execute Jefferson and only
3 had dissented. Had any one of those
dissenting votes traded places on a given trial with one of the death votes, Jefferson
would be awaiting execution on death row.
Jefferson’s final sentencing date was selected. We were told that many of the surviving crime
victims and their families would attend. My own calendar was crowded those
days, but I managed to stop by the sentencing courtroom early in the morning. I
said “Hi” to the judge, and asked Matley’s defense team
if I could see my old client for a minute.
They agreed and the bailiff brought Jefferson out to sit with me at
counsel table. He had his trial clothes on for the sentencing, a simple white
shirt and neat slacks. I immediately
noticed that same sense of serenity that had caught my eye years earlier when
he seemed to be recovering from his demons.
Jefferson smiled slightly.
“Didn’t expect to see you,” he said.
We talked for a while. I told him
he’d been spared for a reason. He solemnly nodded. I wished him well. I’ve not seen him since.
But at noon that day I did something that, as a recovering
Unitarian, I had never done before. I
attended a noon Good Friday service. A dear friend of ours, Mary, the wife of
the GTU president, was singing in an Oakland church. So Robyn and I attended services. The timing
was purely serendipitous. Jefferson was to
be sentenced that very afternoon.
Non-Christians might find it strange that the day of
Jesus’ torture and execution by the occupying Roman authorities is commemorated
in this way. But this is about hope, is
it not? I found myself greatly moved by
this service.
I’ve since become convinced that the narrative of
the Passion and its aftermath carry a powerful, even shocking relevance for the
contemporary human condition. My internal confirmation process had begun.
The next morning, I picked up the Saturday morning
paper. In the City Section, I read an account of Jefferson’s sentencing. I was floored. You just can’t make this stuff
up. I put down my coffee cup and reread
the whole article twice.
The victims, the survivors, friends and families who
attended Jefferson’s sentencing had evidently been in a long correspondence
with him. He had expressed his sorrow,
shame and regret for what he had done, and he did so again in open court.
Then – and the telling of this still part still
seems unreal - victim after victim got up in court and … they forgave him.