One Attorney’s Diary of a Death Wish

When San Quentin killer Robert Massie finally got his wish a few days ago--his execution after 35 years of asking--it also closed a chapter that spanned the career of Santa Ana lawyer Roger Hanson.

The first criminal case Hanson ever laid eyes on, in 1965, involved Massie.

In 1967, it was Hanson who persuaded Gov. Ronald Reagan to stay Massie’s original execution date so he could testify at the trial of Hanson’s client.

It was Hanson who then kept up a correspondence with Massie. It was Hanson who was among a group of people invited to attend one of Massie’s execution dates in the ‘60s.

It was Hanson who was interviewing Massie on Death Row in 1968--two days before another scheduled execution date--when the warden came in with a message from Massie’s mother.

And it was Hanson who testified in 1979 at Massie’s second murder trial--this one for a shooting only a few months after his parole from his original prison term.

By any definition, 68-year-old Hanson and Massie go back a long way.

Yet Hanson, who has opposed capital punishment since his boyhood in Iowa, neither fumed nor shed tears when Massie died just after midnight Tuesday.

“If you have nothing more ahead of you than being locked in a cell and you’re only getting out for a little bit of exercise, I’m not sure I’d care to go on either,” Hanson says. “And as I get older, I probably am more accepting of the fact that life is finite, you never know how much time you’ve got and to eke out a few more years in a cell, I’m not sure it’s worth it.”

By the mid-’60s, Hanson already had degrees in engineering and mathematics when he got a law degree. A young lawyer in product liability law, he was working in his first office when he saw a transcript of the 1965 shooting case for which Massie and a man named John Vetter were charged.

Hanson volunteered to work on the case and ended up representing Vetter, the alleged getaway driver at the shooting for which Massie and Vetter later were convicted.

Hanson won a reversal of Vetter’s conviction and then represented him at his second trial. Thanks in part to Massie’s testimony, he won an acquittal. To get Massie’s testimony, Hanson had to ask Reagan to stay his execution.

Keeping in Touch

After Vetter’s trial, Hanson stayed in touch with Massie, partly out of gratitude that he testified and partly out of concern for his ongoing insistence on being executed.

That led to a visit in November 1968, when Hanson and another death-penalty opponent went to San Quentin to talk Massie out of wanting to die. They’d already persuaded a federal judge to stay Massie’s execution--scheduled for two days later--but they didn’t tell Massie, because the judge wanted Massie to support it--something he still wouldn’t do.

The night’s most memorable moment, Hanson says, came when the warden walked in with a message for Massie.

“The warden came in and said, ‘Bob, I got a call from your mother in Virginia. She doesn’t have enough money both to come out here to see you before you get executed and also to pay to ship your body back. So, she’s decided not to come and see you. She’s going to ship your body back.’ ”

What sticks with Hanson is how calmly Massie took the news. “He let it roll off like water off a duck’s back. He said, ‘OK, thank you, warden.’ ”

The next day, Hanson says, the state Supreme Court stayed all executions pending a ruling in an unrelated murder case.

I suppose it would make a somewhat better story to say Hanson and Massie stayed in touch for the entire 35 years. But after testifying at Massie’s second trial more than 20 years ago, Hanson says he lost touch with him.

In fact, Hanson didn’t know the execution was imminent until a week or so ago, when a San Francisco organization opposed to capital punishment contacted him. They asked if he could help them stave off Massie’s execution.

Hanson wasn’t sure what he could offer. No matter; the courts didn’t allow the group to intervene.

And then came the execution.

“I don’t like to see anybody get executed,” Hanson says. “But I kind of analogize this to pulling the plug on someone who’s terminally ill. Some people decide they don’t want to be kept alive if there’s no way they can be brought back to a healthy life. So how is this different? People make decisions they don’t want to go on.”

I ask if, after so much time has passed, he’d have wanted to attend the execution.

“I noticed in the paper that several former lawyers witnessed it,” he says. “If they had invited me, I suppose I would have gone.”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821; by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626; or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.