CHAPTER ONE
1990
In order for an Oregon Circuit Court judge to sentence a defendant charged with aggravated murder to death, all twelve members of a defendant’s jury had to answer yes to several questions. Those questions asked whether the defendant deliberately killed the victim without justifiable provocation, whether there was a probability that the defendant would commit acts of violence in the future, and whether, given all the circumstances in the case, the jurors thought the defendant should be sentenced to death.
As soon as the foreperson of the jury in the sentencing phase of Jose Alvarez’s capital murder case told Judge Muriel Jacobs that the jurors had unanimously found against Jose Alvarez, Judge Jacobs took a deep breath. Facing her with a stunned expression was a twenty-four-year-old college student whose bright future had turned to ashes.
Judge Jacobs took a sip of water before speaking. When shedid speak, it took an effort to appear calm. This was the first time she had to impose a sentence of death, and she felt sick.
“Mr. Alvarez, you have just heard that the jurors have unanimously decided that the punishment in your case should be a sentence of death. Since they have reached this verdict, the law gives me no choice but to remand you to the custody of the Department of Corrections, where you will remain until a sentence of death has been carried out. Your attorney will advise you about your recourse at law.”
Jose stared at the judge. His legs shook, and he had to brace himself on the counsel table to stay upright.
“Please, Judge. I would never hurt Margo. Don’t do this.”
“I have no choice, Mr. Alvarez. Once your jurors reached its decision my hands were tied. I’m sorry.”
And the judge was genuinely sorry. Even though she was convinced that Alvarez had murdered his girlfriend, she would not have condemned the young man to death.
Jose collapsed onto his seat. In the spectators’ section, Jose’s parents began to cry. They were immigrants who had dedicated their lives to giving their brilliant son an education. He had repaid them by graduating near the top of his high school class and maintaining a straight-A average in engineering at an elite college. Now the object of all their energy would rot on death row until he was put down with a lethal injection.
Frank Melville watched Jose’s attorney lay a comforting hand on his client’s shoulder. The deputy district attorney knew that Jose’s lawyer was telling Jose that they would appeal, that his death at the hands of the State was not a foregone conclusion. Frank knew that Jose’s life would not be saved by the Oregon Supreme Court. The trial had been very clean, and there were no errors in the record that would lead to a new trial.
Frank put the file on the Alvarez case in his attaché case. He was relieved that his role in this tragedy was over. When the young district attorney had won his other capital cases, he had felt proud that he had avenged a killer’s victim, but he wasn’t experiencing the same jolt of electricity now.
Frank hefted his attaché case and walked through the bar of the court. He had taken a few steps up the aisle when Jose’s parents blocked his way. They didn’t look angry. They looked bewildered. Frank knew from the police reports that Pablo and Maria Alvarez were in their midfifties, but they looked frail and much older. Frank had no idea how they had looked before Jose’s arrest, but he was certain that Jose’s ordeal had aged them.
“Please,” Maria begged, “do not do this to our son.”
The court guards saw what was happening and walked between Frank and Jose’s parents.
Frank wanted to say something, but the finest orator in the district attorney’s office was lost. Frank mumbled, “I’m sorry,” and walked toward the courtroom door, fighting the impulse to race into the corridor.
Several deputy district attorneys had been in the spectator section to hear the verdict. As soon as the foreperson delivered it, most of them went upstairs to tell everyone about Frank’s latest victory. When Frank walked toward his office, everyone stood up and clapped. Melville ducked his head and raised his hand halfway to acknowledge the applause before closing his office door and dropping onto the chair behind his desk.
Frank appreciated the applause, but he had mixed emotionsabout the sentence the judge had imposed. Jose Alvarez had proclaimed his innocence when he testified, but Melville had no doubts, reasonable or otherwise, that Alvarez had bludgeoned Margo Prescott to death in her dorm room at Randolph College, where they were students. Several witnesses had seen the couple quarreling shortly before the murder. Archie Stallings had testified that he had seen Jose run from the scene with blood on his clothes. Jose’s bloody handprint had been discovered on Prescott’s body, and the victim’s blood was found on Alvarez’s clothing.
Melvillehadgiven Alvarez a way out. He’d offered to drop the possibility of a death sentence if Alvarez pled to life with the possibility of parole. Alvarez had rejected the offer, so he’d made his choice. Why, then, did Frank feel deflated instead of ecstatic? Was he worried that subconscious bias had played a part in the jury’s decision to execute a poor Hispanic who was dating a rich, white coed? Would the jury have spared Alvarez if he had been an upper-class WASP like Archie Stallings and his victim had been a poor Mexican?
Frank had used his exceptional oratorical skills to convince the jurors to vote for death, but now that he’d done his duty, he wondered if he’d done the right thing. Frank sighed. There was no profit in second-guessing. What was done, was done. The odds were against the death sentence being carried out, anyway. Alvarez would have an automatic appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court. Post-conviction review would follow. Then there would be federal appeals and on and on. There were even rumors that the governor was going to order a moratorium on death sentences. Hell, it was almost impossible to get executed in Oregon. There were convicts who had been on death row for decades.
Melville closed his eyes and massaged his eyelids. He wasexhausted. Trying a death penalty case took everything out of you. When he opened his eyes, he looked at his watch. It was four o’clock, and there was no way he would be able to concentrate on his other cases. He needed to go home, hug his wife, and slug down a stiff drink.
The young DA put the Alvarez files and trial book on the center of his desk, turned out the lights, and left for home.
The house in Portland’s West Hills where Frank Melville lived was not one that Frank could have afforded on a deputy district attorney’s salary. The four-thousand-square-foot Tudor home had been a wedding gift from his wife’s parents.
During his second year in law school, Larry Trent, Frank’s best friend, had fixed him up with Katherine Whitlow and they had fallen madly in love. Frank knew that Katherine had just returned from a year in England, where she had studied European History at Oxford. He didn’t know that she was the sole heir to a fortune until they had been dating for nine months and she finally invited him to her parents’ thirty-million-dollar estate in California. Frank’s parents were middle-class and he had worked to pay for college and law school. He’d never seen anything like the estate, which wasn’t even the Whitlows’ primary residence. The Melvilles’ “summer home” had been a cabin they rented one week a year on a lake outside of Bend in Central Oregon.
Katherine’s father was a self-made man whose fortune had been made when logging was the main industry in Oregon, and he’d taken to Frank right away. Katherine had never made the difference in their net worth an issue and the couple were as much in love now as they had been during their courtship.
Katherine knew that the jury was going to deliver its verdictin the sentencing phase of the Alvarez trial and she met Frank at the front door.
“What happened?” she asked when she saw that her husband was not smiling.
“The jury voted for death.”
Katherine frowned. “Why aren’t you happy?”