Lawyer Argues Against Death Penalty for Davis

Born to cold, unloving parents, abandoned by his mother at the age of 9, in trouble with the law by 12 and an alcoholic by his mid-teens, Richard Allen Davis spent most of his adult life behind bars, his defense attorney told jurors Monday as she argued for his life.

In stark, simple terms, attorney Lorena Chandler sketched a portrait of what she called “a damaged human being” for jurors who must decide whether Davis, the man they convicted last month of murdering 12-year-old Polly Klaas, should die by lethal injection or spend the rest of his life in prison without parole.

In opening the penalty phase of the case, Chandler promised to fill in the broad outlines of Davis’ life with testimony in the coming days from his sister and grandmother, who is in her 90s.

She said she also will call psychiatric experts to speak of the mental and emotional damage inflicted on Davis by his troubled childhood and adolescence. Prison officials will testify, she said, as to how productive Davis is when behind bars.

“No one is going to be making any excuses here. . . . There are no excuses,” for what Davis did to Polly, Chandler said. But there are explanations for why he became a violent criminal who had served time for armed robbery, assault and other crimes before he killed Polly, she said.

Chandler’s arguments were angrily dismissed by Marc Klaas, Polly’s father, when he spoke with reporters outside the San Jose courtroom. Davis’ two brothers, Klaas said, grew up in similar circumstances but “are law-abiding citizens.”

Legal experts say Chandler and co-counsel Barry Collins face an uphill battle in their fight to persuade jurors to spare Davis’ life after the same panel found him guilty last month of first-degree murder with four special circumstances, including kidnapping and attempting to commit a lewd act on a child.

Chandler told jurors that during Davis’ trial they rightfully focused on the suffering that Polly endured when he kidnapped her from her Petaluma home during a slumber party Oct. 1, 1993, and later strangled her. But now, she said, it is time to focus on Davis.

“We ask that you not go into this . . . thinking that the death penalty is appropriate and looking to us to prove that it is not,” Chandler said. “The evidence will show you that the punishment of life without possibility of parole will protect society, will punish and will serve justice.”

In his opening Monday, prosecutor Greg Jacobs focused on the heinousness of the murder and on Davis’ crimes, calling some of his earlier victims to the stand and presenting a chart of Davis’ long string of felony convictions.

The prosecutor told jurors that strangulation is a slow and painful way to die. He said he will put Polly’s father and her maternal grandfather on the stand to speak of the family’s suffering since the murder.

“You will hear evidence as to who Polly was--not just a 12-year-old girl who was playing in the bedroom that night,” Jacobs said, but also a child who loved music and swimming and who probably went quietly with Davis for fear that he might harm her mother, little sister and the two playmates spending the night.

Jacobs also is expected to introduce a videotape taken in court after the verdict was read that shows Davis raising the middle fingers of both hands before deputies led him from the courtroom.

Last week, Judge Thomas C. Hastings declined a defense request to question jurors on whether they had seen the obscene gesture. On Monday, however, one juror told the court that a co-worker had mentioned something to her about a gesture being made.

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“I really don’t know what the whole situation was about, but I didn’t want it to jeopardize your trial,” the juror, identified only as Juror No. 4, told the judge after he cleared the other 11 jurors from the court.

“Do you feel this comment affects your ability to render judgment fairly?” Hastings asked. When the juror replied no, Hastings resumed the proceedings.

While Jacobs focused on the pain and suffering that Davis inflicted on Polly and those who loved her, Chandler tried to shift the jury’s attention to Davis himself, a man she portrayed as another kind of victim.

“I only ask that you make room for hearing about Mr. Davis’ life and the pain and anguish in his life as well,” Chandler said. “Something as big as what happened here came from something and it came from something big. . . . It is clear that Mr. Davis is a damaged human being.”

Davis, 42, was the third of five children born to Evelyn and Robert Davis, Chandler said. His parents’ bitter, unhappy marriage was marred by frequent arguments before they finally parted, she said.

Davis, then 9, “was a sensitive and quiet child,” Chandler said, who felt “the loss of his mother greatly . . . pined for her.”

Although the father took custody of all five children, “he didn’t know what to do with them” and often left them to fend for themselves, Chandler said.

When Davis’ sister, Patsy, died at the age of 10 after falling down a flight of stairs, the attorney said, there was no one to comfort Davis and his brothers and remaining sister.

By the time he was 12, Davis was being questioned by juvenile authorities over forging a signature on a money order. Davis dropped out of school after ninth grade and by 16, “Rick became involved in using alcohol and marijuana,” Chandler said.

The penalty phase is expected to last two to three weeks.