New position recognizes toll on death penalty prosecutors

By: JOHN HALL - Staff Writer
District Attorney says it is needed to keep 'top guns' in the courtroom | Tuesday, October 2, 2007 11:11 PM PDT ∞

RIVERSIDE -- The toll can be excruciating.

Prosecutors in death penalty cases have been known to lose noticeable amounts of both weight and hair while most certainly losing whatever spare time they may have had before such a trial.

Now, the Riverside County District Attorney's Office is taking a new approach in an effort to not only show appreciation and support for those who prosecute capital cases, but also to keep those talented lawyers in the courtroom.

Select death penalty prosecutors -- only nine across the county as of now -- will be assigned a new position that will give them a pay increase of about 5 percent, bringing them to about the same pay as the management position of a supervising deputy district attorney. The position has been approved by the county Board of Supervisors.

"This will help us retain our best prosecutors," District Attorney Rod Pacheco said Monday.

"These are the best trial lawyers in any field -- the top guns," Pacheco said, "and it is important that we find a way to motivate, retain and accommodate them."

Pacheco said he is not aware of any other county in the state doing this.

While a prosecutor, Pacheco tried five death penalty cases, including two back-to-back that kept him in a courtroom for about eight straight months.

"I tell people that I really feel like each of those (five trials) took a year from my life," he said.

"It takes an abnormally strong personal constitution to handle these cases," Pacheco said. "The impact is psychological as well as physical."

So, Pacheco says, he knows full well how important it can be for a death penalty lawyer to know they are supported -- both verbally and monetarily.

"What everyone needs in any line of work is a sign that management appreciates their efforts," Pacheco said. "The intangible benefits are sometimes more beneficial than the money."

The idea for the new position came from Assistant District Attorney Bill Mitchell, who Pacheco calls "probably the top death penalty prosecutor in the state."

Of the nearly 280 prosecutors in the office, only nine qualify right now for the newly formed position -- four each in the Riverside and Indio offices and one at the Southwest office in French Valley.

Pacheco said the number of prosecutors qualifying for this position will always be small because there aren't that many cases that meet his criteria to seek death and there are only a few lawyers who can prosecute those cases.

There are presently 19 death penalty cases pending in Riverside County. Such cases may take years to resolve.

Prosecutors are eligible for the new position if they are either handling a death penalty case or have handled at least one in the past. At the Southwest office, only Deputy District Attorney John Davis qualifies.

In his 22 years with the office, Davis has tried three death penalty cases among his 40 murder trials -- all resulting in convictions.

Davis is now assigned to prosecute the death penalty cases of Marcus Fletcher and Dale Dante Thomas, both charged with the murder of an Old Town Temecula liquor store clerk killed during a robbery.

"In a death penalty case, you have the most high-profile, most dangerous defendants we prosecute," Davis said. "It is of primary importance those cases get convictions whenever possible."

There are many built-in stresses and responsibilities with such cases, which typically take the longest to both prepare for and to try before a jury, he said.

"You are working maybe 16-hour days, usually seven days a week for many months," Davis said.

The case also is examined closely through the automatic appeal process, so everything is magnified, he said.

"Prosecutors really deserve to be compensated for that," Davis said. "I think this was a very smart thing for the county to do.

"This encourages our top trial attorneys to stay out of management and stay in the courtroom," he said. "In my mind, those attorneys are more valuable to the public in the courtroom."

Deputy District Attorney Michael Hestrin will be prosecuting Raymond Lee Oyler, who faces the death penalty in connection with allegedly starting the huge Esperanza fire that killed five U.S. Forest Service firefighters one year ago.

Hestrin, who is assigned to the downtown Riverside office, has tried two other death penalty cases, including one in which a man raped and murdered a pregnant woman at a Riverside park.

Before his first death penalty case, Hestrin said he thought those who had tried them might have been exaggerating their difficulty a bit.

"In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, 'Come on, how can it be that different?'" Hestrin said.

Then, he experienced his first one.

"I quickly found out they are very different. The pressure is very real," he said, citing pressures that come from the community, the media and within his own office.

"In the second month of my first capital case I was thinking 'How can I do this?'" Hestrin said.

He finished the trial and now, according to Pacheco, is one of the office's best at death penalty prosecutions.

Hestrin said he knows that both Pacheco and Mitchell understand the toll a death penalty trial takes.

"I certainly appreciate that they recognize the work we do," Hestrin said, adding that having a position available like this -- with the compensation it brings -- does help keep him in the courtroom.

-- Contact staff writer John Hall at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2628, or jhall@californian.com.