Fired Worker’s Trial in Convair Shootings Starts : Courts: Earl Mack’s unusual ‘blackout’ defense claims he ‘snapped’ before the shootings and doesn’t recall what happened.

In a case with no suspense about what happened but ample mystery about why, Robert Earl Mack’s murder trial began Tuesday with prosecutors and the defense in agreement that Mack shot two General Dynamics Convair Division officials last January, killing one man and wounding the other.

Prosecutors painted the shootings as a cold-blooded attack, simple revenge for the layoff notice that company officials had just sent Mack, a 24-year employee. Immediately after a grievance hearing called last Jan. 24 to contest his firing, Mack shot and wounded his supervisor, then chased and killed a Convair labor negotiator.

The defense contended that Mack planned only to kill himself in a “suicide ritual,” intending to dramatize his layoff. But, defense lawyer J. Michael Roake said, Mack blacked out after the grievance hearing ended. When Mack came to, he called his mother, saying, “Two men down, Mama. It didn’t supposed to happen this way.”

Roake told a San Diego Superior Court jury, “This is not a whodunit. The defense does not contest the what that occurred. But, over the next few weeks, you’re going to figure out the muddle of the why.”

Mack, 43, is charged with the murder of Michael Konz, 25, and the attempted murder of James T. English, 52, both shot in the head. Konz was a management labor negotiator. English was Mack’s supervisor.

Mack, who for most of the pretrial proceedings had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, withdrew that plea last week and now contends he simply is not guilty on both counts.

His apparent “blackout” defense is an unusual but not unheard-of tactic. In general, the law demands that a person be conscious when committing a crime. That means “unconsciousness,” whether triggered by stress or trauma, can be offered as a defense.

If convicted, Mack could draw from 34 years to life in prison, not a mental hospital, because of the change of plea. Prosecutors opted not to seek the death penalty, and last month a judge said the shootings did not meet the legal standard that justifies life in prison without parole.

The opening Tuesday of the trial attracted an unusual mixture of relatives, friends and law students, drawn not only by Mack and the intense media attention the case has generated but by the match-up of the two veteran trial lawyers in the case, Deputy Public Defender Roake and Deputy Dist. Atty. Bob Sickels.

The 36-seat courtroom was jammed for opening arguments. In attendance, according to a list kept by Judge Richard M. Murphy that demanded a name and reason for being there, were about a dozen law students who came to see the two attorneys. A visiting attorney from Iceland was intrigued by U.S. justice. Someone else said, “I wanna see a star,” without adding more.

In the back left corner of the courtroom sat Charlotte English, wife of the wounded man. She declined to comment on the case. James T. English did not attend.

Mack showed no emotion Tuesday in court. He concentrated on taking notes with a green felt-tipped pen.

Sickels, the prosecutor, said the case was simple and straightforward. Repeatedly, Sickels said, Mack had been late to work. Mack was warned, then suspended for a day. But the tardiness continued and, on Jan. 18, Mack was given notice he was being fired.

Mack was even 40 minutes late to the Jan. 24 grievance hearing, which had been called by Mack’s union and was held at the Convair plant near Lindbergh Field, Sickels said. The company, which makes airplane frames and missiles, was rocked Tuesday by word that 2,000 jobs will be moved out of San Diego if Hughes Aircraft’s proposed $450-million purchase of Convair’s Tomahawk Cruise missile unit goes through.

Because he was late, Mack didn’t have time to present his version of events, Sickels said. The hearing broke up. Then, Sickels said, Mack walked out the door, found English a few feet away near an entrance to the building and shot him.

Konz heard the shot, peeked around a corner, saw Mack, shouted and started running from Mack, Sickels said. Konz ran out of the building and slowed when he nearly tripped over English. Mack caught up and fired two shots from a .38-caliber revolver, one of which hit Konz in the back of the head, Sickels said.

Mack walked back in the building and called his mother. According to Sickels, two Convair employees in the room with Mack heard him say on the phone, “I shot the guy that had the personal vendetta against me. I shot the guy that . . . fired me.”

Defense lawyer Roake said that was not at all that Mack said on the phone. Roake said Mack told his mother over and over, “It didn’t supposed to happen this way.”

Mack was late for the hearing, Roake said, because he was saying “personal goodbys” to his girlfriend.

To Mack, losing his job meant losing his life, Roake said. Mack had decided to commit suicide at the Convair plant, hoping to prompt investigations of what he deemed unfair treatment after 24 years of service, Roake said.

The Jan. 18 letter had “begun to gnaw on (Mack’s) mind,” Roake said. Over the next week, Mack had “bad dreams” in which the letter “kept reappearing to him.” Roake added, “He felt his life had ended because his work was his life.”

When the Jan. 24 hearing ended without Mack having his say, Roake said, Mack’s vision blurred, his mouth dried and his fingers tingled. Mack stepped to the water fountain but remembers nothing else about what came next, Roake said.

Mack “snapped,” the lawyer said, emphasizing the word by snapping a rubber band he had been working in his hands. “Something short-circuited, and this gentle man acted as if in a dream, without a thought,” Roake said.

Witnesses will testify that Mack’s “face appeared taut and his eyes appeared dead,” Roake said. Mack shot English, then Konz, then put the gun to his own head, Roake said.

Distracted by the commotion, Roake said, Mack put the gun down and called his mother. A few minutes later, a bewildered Mack surrendered to police, Roake said.