Bizarre Tangle Emerges on Sentence in CHP Deaths : Courts: Jury decreed death in ’78 case. But judge, who now doubts man’s guilt, resentenced him to life.

It was 13 years ago Sunday, in a cold early morning tule fog, that a motorist somehow got the drop on two highway patrolmen, then murdered them with their own guns in a Christmas week crime that shocked the state.

CHP Officer William M. Freeman, 35, took five bullets. His partner, Roy P. Blecher, 50, was found with his hands cuffed, shot in the head as he knelt on the freeway shoulder a few miles west of the state capital.

By Christmas Eve, Luis V. Rodriguez, a powerfully built 23-year-old with a long criminal past, was behind bars. His phony driver’s license had been recovered under the slain officers’ patrol car, and a girlfriend said she was with him at the scene of the murders. Once they found Rodriguez guilty, jurors needed just two days to conclude that the only fitting penalty was death.

More than a decade later, Rodriguez is very much alive, his body rippled by years of pumping iron in prison. Ask why the popular call for executions goes unheeded in this state, and some answers lie in the saga of what Deputy Atty. Gen. Dane Gillette calls “the most bizarre (death penalty case) in terms of its procedural history.”

The legal tangle of Luis Rodriguez, now 36, is all the more surprising because, at the start, the case looked more solid than most. Back when the California Supreme Court regularly reversed death judgments, the justices upheld his conviction and affirmed all but one seemingly technical aspect of his death sentence. A date with the San Quentin gas chamber appeared to be assured.

But ever since that 1986 ruling, the case has careened through the court system--the subject of almost 40 hearings. Rodriguez regularly dispatches writs and legal papers from his cell at San Quentin. Charges of judicial bias fly, and the case is on appeal for the third time since the high court ruling.

The central figure presiding over this long case is Superior Court Judge Joseph Karesh, at 83 one of the state’s senior judges. He first took the bench in 1961, in San Francisco, and formally retired in 1978. He has continued to hear cases full time in Oakland by special appointment.

Then-Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird selected Karesh to handle the highly charged case of the slain CHP officers in 1980, and current Chief Justice Malcolm Lucas has kept him on.

Two weeks ago, in the face of persistent defense attacks on the verdict, Karesh proclaimed that he has “continually growing doubts” about whether Rodriguez is guilty. Citing his doubts, Karesh cut Rodriguez’s death sentence to life in prison without parole.

The judge said he does not believe the story of the chief witness, Rodriguez’s ex-lover, Margaret Klaess, whose testimony has been challenged by the defense. Without her testimony the case is weak, Karesh said, and he also is skeptical that one man alone could have disarmed and shot the two CHP officers.

Karesh did not explain if his view had changed in the decade since the trial or why he discounted the other evidence: The fake driver’s license. The testimony by five witnesses that Rodriguez threatened to kill any police officer who tried to arrest him. The partial shoe print that matched the brand Rodriguez wore. The blood spot that stained his jeans.

Prosecutors are not easily shocked, but this turn stunned them. Nearly 13 years after the murders, the verdict that seemed so solid--and to them so just--was cast aside. Rodriguez is no longer a condemned man listed among the 314 prisoners awaiting California’s first execution since 1967.

The anger of those who locked up Rodriguez is now focused on Karesh. Yolo County Dist. Atty. David Henderson called the judge the “prototype of the failings of the judicial system,” and says the latest ruling contradicts Karesh’s holding in the trial that the evidence--then fresh in mind--supported a conviction.

In an appeal, prosecutors hope to reinstate the death penalty. No longer hiding their feelings toward Karesh, they also have asked that the judge be removed, citing excessive delays in deciding the issues in the case.

Henderson’s contention is that what began as mild uncertainty on Karesh’s part has been magnified by time and by another “powerful factor”--the judge’s opposition to the death penalty.

In an interview, Karesh acknowledges that he opposes capital punishment--and has never sentenced anyone other than Rodriguez to death--but insists that his view had nothing to do with the decision. A former federal prosecutor, Karesh is one of three brothers who entered the law. His son is a San Mateo County prosecutor. In a biographical sketch, Karesh says he believes in an “independent judiciary.”

He wouldn’t otherwise discuss the Rodriguez case. But in court he called the case “the most troubling” of his 30-year judicial career.

Rodriguez grew up middle class in the Los Angeles County suburb of Pico Rivera. His criminal record started at age 14 with auto theft. He was married once, and briefly enrolled in college, stating he hoped to be a probation officer.

Along the way, he got a tattoo on his chest. At first glance, it is said to resemble a flower. On a closer look, the petals are the chambers of a revolver. The barrel aims straight out.

Rodriguez met Klaess in January, 1978, when he picked the Orange County girl up hitchhiking. She was 17, using heroin and selling herself. Within three weeks, Klaess was living in Rodriguez’s Santa Ana apartment and he was her pimp, police said.

As the year rolled by, the couple roamed from Southern California to the Bay Area to Sacramento--stealing cars, pulling armed robberies, getting high, and doing short jail stints for petty crimes.

By December, they were strung out and living in a cheap room on a sleazy strip of by-the-week motels and bars in West Sacramento. That month, they were arrested at a mall in Richmond, Rodriguez for failing to identify himself and Klaess for being under the influence of drugs. She had needle tracks on her arms. Police impounded his truck, relegating them to bumming rides.

On Dec. 21, Rodriguez walked into a Department of Motor Vehicles office in Vallejo and obtained a temporary license using an alias. He and Klaess went to a car lot a few blocks away, where a salesman let them test drive a Camaro. They didn’t return. Needing money to get their truck and make it home to Southern California for Christmas, they robbed two people at gunpoint that night.

Around midnight, the couple showed up at the home of a friend in Crockett, between San Francisco and Sacramento. They had been drinking rum, then began snorting cocaine. Sometime that morning they left for their West Sacramento motel, about an hour away. The timing is a crucial factual dispute in the case.

Their friend in Crockett said the couple left together at 2:30 a.m., about the right time to place them in West Sacramento at the time of the killings. Rodriguez testified the hour was 1:30 a.m., and that by the time of the murders he was asleep alone in the motel room. He said he had fought with Klaess, punching her in the mouth, and she drove off in search of more cocaine, taking her purse and his bogus driver’s license.

At 3:30 a.m., the two CHP Officers, Freeman and Blecher, were on patrol on the foggy Interstate 80 freeway. Traffic was light, and they probably were ready for breakfast when they made one final stop.

At the trial, the testimony of Klaess fingered Rodriguez. As they reached West Sacramento, she said, a Highway Patrol car pulled up behind. Rodriguez got out to talk to the officer who came to the window, and a few minutes later there were shots, she testified. A wounded officer cried out: “ ‘Help me. God, help me. Somebody help me.’ ”

Klaess said that she saw him, but slid farther down in her seat.

How the killer got hold of the lawmen’s guns was never explained. Don Ehmsen, then a Yolo County sheriff’s detective, speculates that Rodriguez had been arrested before the killings. One of his hands may even have been locked in a cuff when he drew his pistol, which was later found unfired in the roadside shrubbery.

Blecher, who was a year from retirement, kept a back-up revolver hidden in an ankle holster. When he was found, his pant leg was pulled up as if he or Freeman had grabbed for the hidden gun. It was empty but had not been fired--apparently Blecher forgot to reload it, Ehmsen speculated.

In a parking lot across the freeway, a Yolo County sheriff’s deputy heard the shots. The killer was gone when he arrived. But police found the phony license and traced it to Rodriguez. A drawing of the suspect went to police across the state.

The Richmond officers who arrested Rodriguez and Klaess at the mall a few days before recognized the likeness, and phoned the lot where Rodriguez’s truck was impounded. He had just claimed his truck and driven off. Within a half-hour, squad cars surrounded the couple a few blocks away in Richmond.

“It’s over, babe,” Rodriguez said, according to Klaess. “It’s all over . . . let’s just shut our mouths. Don’t say anything.’ ”

News of the crimes flashed across the state. Just six weeks before the murders, an angry electorate approved an initiative by 71% to 29% to broaden the death penalty. Local press coverage was so intense the trial was moved from Yolo County to Redwood City in the Bay Area. Police sold T-shirts emblazoned with a hangman’s noose and slogan, “Adios Louis.”

Within a month of their arrests, Klaess testified at Rodriguez’s preliminary hearing--”just trying to look out for No. 1,” she said. Murder charges against her were dropped, and she pleaded guilty to helping Rodriguez after the murders and was sentenced to three years in prison. His trial opened in October, 1980, and went to the jury after three months. For days, the jury was deadlocked at 11 to 1, in favor of conviction. The defense made five motions for mistrial. Three times, Karesh gave new instructions to end the impasse. On the 21st day of deliberation, the holdout juror relented.

Five years later, the state Supreme Court affirmed the conviction. But the 4-3 decision, issued two weeks before voters ousted Bird and two other liberal justices in part for their refusal to affirm death judgments, directed Karesh to carry out what the defense, the prosecution and the Supreme Court justices thought was a straightforward order.

Karesh needed to act as a 13th juror, and weigh the evidence to determine whether the jury recommendation of death was warranted, the justices said.

In an interview, the opinion’s author, former Justice Joseph Grodin, said he figured the ruling meant that Rodriguez would be executed, assuming the case withstood further appeals. “The fact of the matter is that it did not often happen that the trial judge will set aside a death penalty (verdict),” Grodin said.

But Karesh made it clear he was not going to act hastily. He asked lawyers to present written arguments on the proper sentence. Defense lawyers searched for any irregularity in the trial and found what they were looking for: a juror breached protocol by independently investigating an aspect of the case.

Juror Shelby Martin had visited a bar in Crockett where Rodriguez bought cocaine on the night of the murders, and clocked the time it would take to drive to West Sacramento. When deliberations resumed, he used what he learned in an to attempt to sway the holdout juror.

Prosecutor Henderson agreed that the juror’s behavior represented misconduct. Jury misconduct almost always results in a new trial. But the prosecutor argued that there was never a doubt that it took an hour to drive from Crockett to West Sacramento. The controversy was over what time Rodriguez left: 2:30 a.m., as his friend testified, or an hour earlier as Rodriguez contends.

In 1988, nearly a decade after the crimes, Karesh declared the question of the juror Martin’s misconduct to be “central” and threw out the conviction. “At the very least,” he said, “Martin’s own impartiality was destroyed.” A new trial should be held, Karesh ruled.

But the ruling only pulled the legal tangles tighter. Deputy Atty. Gen. Ronald Matthias appealed and won. Last April, a state court of appeal reinstated Rodriguez’s conviction. The court also chastised Karesh for “excessive delay” and gave him a deadline to comply with the Supreme Court’s original directive--to sentence Rodriguez based on the trial evidence--or else give up the case.

Last month, Rodriguez took the unusual step of asking the judge for a death sentence. It was a legal stratagem aimed at moving his case into the federal court system for a new round of appeals.

But this month Karesh handed down his decision, sentencing Rodriguez to life and saying he no longer believes in the convict’s guilt.

Now, 13 years after the murder, passions have calmed and memories have dimmed. Highway Patrol officers don’t like to talk about fallen officers. Better to keep the pain at bay. But Karesh’s decision rekindled some of the old anger.

CHP Sgt. William Fields, shift supervisor on the night of the murders, called the decision “another example of why I’ve become rather cynical.” Shelby Freeman, Officer Freeman’s widow, said “the judge has fallen down.”

Jury foreman Robert Fitzgerald said he is certain he made the right call recommending the death penalty 11 years ago. But given Karesh’s orders, he fears the time he spent on the case was for naught.

“If he wants to be judge and jury, that’s fine. But don’t take six months out of my life,” Fitzgerald said.

Former Yolo County Dist. Atty. Rick Gilbert, who originally prosecuted Rodriguez, voices no doubts about Rodriguez’s guilt, saying it wasn’t a “particularly difficult case.” There was ample evidence without Klaess testimony, he said. He blames Karesh’s doubts mainly on the “passage of time.”

But Gilbert said he also understands the difficulty of Karesh’s choice. Gilbert himself was appointed to the bench after prosecuting Rodriguez, and had to put aside his own opposition to capital punishment to impose a death sentence.

“It is a terrible decision to make,” he said. “Because somebody’s life is at stake, you can never have too much information.”

For now, Rodriguez’s murder convictions stand. But given Karesh’s comments that he doubts Rodriguez’s guilt, there’s a chance he could win a new trial.

What would occur then is anyone’s guess. It’s not known if Klaess would be willing to testify again, and how strong her word would be so many years later. Since she left prison, she has lived under assumed names outside California. She recently was arrested on a prostitution charge.

Pressing the effort to win a new trial for Rodriguez, defense attorney Dennis Riordan said prosecutors “have wasted time, because this conviction will not stand in federal court.”

When Karesh convenes court hearings, Rodriguez is there, watched over by no fewer than a dozen officers. Rodriguez has said he believes he will get out one day. In a 1988 prison interview, he said he finds “inspiration” in the few condemned prisoners who won acquittals in retrials and walked from prison.

That Rodriguez thinks he may win his freedom does not surprise Henderson, but the prosecutor doubts that courts would grant a new trial. “He has seen enough of the process to realize that anything can happen--and he’s banking on it,” Henderson said.

Justice Delayed?

The chronology of events in the lengthy legal case of convicted murderer Luis Rodriguez, first sentenced to death in 1981: * Dec. 22, 1978: CHP Officers Roy P. Blecher and William M. Freeman are slain in West Sacramento.

* Dec. 24, 1978: Rodriguez and Margaret Klaess are arrested and charged with the murders. She becomes a prosecution witness and is later sentenced to three years.

* Feb. 25, 1981: Jury returns guilty verdict against Rodriguez on 21st day of deliberation.

* March 20, 1981: Jury recommends death a day after it begins considering the penalty.

* Oct. 23, 1986: California Supreme Court affirms Rodriguez’s conviction but returns the case to Judge Joseph Karesh for “prompt reconsideration” of whether the jury finding of death was appropriate.

* Jan. 23, 1987: Karesh asks lawyers to submit written arguments on what sentence to give Rodriguez, and sets July 17, 1987, for sentencing.

* April 9, 1987: A defense lawyer obtains an affidavit from a juror describing misconduct during deliberations.

* Aug. 19, 1988: Karesh, having postponed sentencing and holding several hearings, grants Rodriguez’s plea for a new trial based on jury misconduct.

* Jan. 5, 1989: Supreme Court directs Karesh to “rule forthwith” on the 1986 question of Rodriguez’s sentence.

* Feb. 17, 1989: Karesh asks Supreme Court for clarification.

* April 14, 1989: Karesh, having received no response, reduces Rodriguez’s sentence to life in prison without parole, citing his previous finding that Rodriguez deserves a new trial.

* April 30, 1991: Court of Appeal invalidates the life sentence, ruling that Karesh improperly considered juror misconduct, and orders him to resentence Rodriguez based solely on the trial evidence. If he fails to act within a set time, Karesh must give up the case.

* Nov. 22, 1991: Karesh, facing the deadline, delays sentencing when Rodriguez declares he wants a death sentence. Such a sentence would speed his case to federal courts where judges would rule without fear of political fallout, says Rodriguez, still maintaining his innocence.

* Dec. 6, 1991: Karesh sentences Rodriguez to life in prison without parole and declares he has deep doubts about Rodriguez’s guilt.

* Dec. 13, 1991: Attorney general appeals.