Friday, Sept. 20, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
A Las Vegas jury ordered one of Nevada's most dangerous prisoners, Patrick McKenna, to die for strangling the life out of a cellmate in 1979. It was the third jury to order his execution.
McKenna, 50, returned Thursday to the state prison in Ely where he is likely to remain in solitary confinement until the death sentence is carried out, one of his lawyers said. Execution is set for the week of Dec. 9, but the case is appealed automatically.
The two-man, 10-woman jury deliberated for three hours Thursday and 1 1/2 hours Wednesday evening before reaching its verdict. The sequestered jurors evaded media questions with help from courthouse officials who said they wanted to avoid a potential safety risk.
"Sorry, no comment," said one woman juror as she left the Golden Nugget hotel-casino across the street from the Clark County Courthouse.
Courthouse authorities and Metro Police had taken extreme safety measures during the death-penalty trial. McKenna has escaped from jail more than three times, and authorities took seriously rumors that people affiliated with a white prison gang planned a jail bust.
But the 1 1/2-week trial was uneventful. An estimated six armed SWAT officers were in court at all times, and the public was subjected to two electronic searches before entering.
The U.S. Supreme Court ordered a new penalty hearing after it was shown that portions of the original sentence and the second death order were unconstitutionally vague. The murder conviction withstood court scrutiny.
McKenna choked fellow prisoner Jack J.J. Nobles the night of Jan. 5, 1979. The 20-year-old Nobles had been in the Las Vegas jail for about two weeks on a burglary charge when McKenna was assigned to his cell.
McKenna, then 32, had been sentenced to three life terms plus 75 years in prison for raping two women in a Las Vegas budget motel. Witnesses testified that he was angry and had been drinking some bootleg prison liquor when a dispute arose over a chess game between him and Nobles. Some say he demanded that Nobles perform a sexual act.
The next morning Nobles was found dead in a cell he shared with McKenna and others. In 1980, McKenna was found guilty of Nobles' murder and sentenced to death.
Noticeably absent during the latest trial was Nobles' family and friends, who likely were unaware of the state's effort make the death penalty stick for a third time.
Prosecutors Dan Seaton and Douglas Herndon said the Clark County district attorney's office lost touch with the family over the past 17 years.
"We looked high and low for the family," Seaton said. "We had our investigators beating the bushes trying to find out where the Nobleses were. We looked at police records, and we found they were devoid of information."
The state relied on McKenna's past rape and hostage victims to make its case. The defendant has an extensive criminal history that dates to age 15 when he was sent to juvenile detention for stabbing a man.
Seaton said he is confident this verdict can withstand an appeal because the state based its decision to pursue the death penalty solely on McKenna's criminal history.
McKenna's attorneys, state public defenders Peter LaPorta and Nancy Lemcke, argued that their client's volatile family life, abusive juvenile probation officers and death of his own child at age 17 helped to trigger his own violence.
Two of McKenna's four brothers, a successful Henderson real estate executive and a Reno lawyer, testified that their older brother craved their father's love, but never received it. They recalled one dinner when their father threw spaghetti in McKenna's face after learning of his poor grades. He then dragged McKenna outside and began punching him as the others watched.
A psychology professor told jurors that he was struck by McKenna's grief for his child when he interviewed him a few days ago and suggested that the defendant was not the crazed killer many believe him to be.
McKenna told jurors Wednesday that he shouldered all the blame for those he had injured, but said the state wrongly was seeking the death sentence to keep him from escaping again.
Although jurors found that McKenna was physically, mentally and emotionally damaged by his abusive childhood and loss of his baby girl, they said it did not outweigh the need for punishment by death.
McKenna closed his eyes when the verdict was read. Brother Tim McKenna of Henderson, his wife and two of their six children, ages 7 and 25, cried. It was the first time the 7-year-old had seen his uncle in person.
"Pat deserves not to be killed by the people who helped create him," Tim McKenna's wife, DeEtte, said. "It's kind of like an eraser -- if they kill Pat, all their mistakes go away."
Tim McKenna, 47, said he was grateful that his brother permitted his family to fight for McKenna's life. In past death-penalty hearings, McKenna had not permitted his family to testify or had forbidden them from speaking about their violent childhood.
But this time, McKenna relented, and his family credits defense attorney Lemcke for convincing their brother and uncle that their testimony may influence the jury's decision.
Lemcke walked out of the courtroom sobbing and crumpled into Tim McKenna's arms.
"I'm so sorry," she mouthed through her tears. "I'm so sorry."
"No," Tim McKenna said. "You did a great job. You just hold your head up. You fought hard, and you did a good job."
"I just feel sick," Lemcke said. "He's more concerned about me, and he's more concerned about you guys."
Tim McKenna said he was angry at the judicial system, pointing to the district attorney's decision this week to not ask for the death sentence for James Meegan, a Las Vegas man convicted of killing his daughter and burning her body in the Arizona desert.
"Pat doesn't want to live in our world," he said. "If he tried to escape, it's a chess game. ... It's what keeps his mind alive.
"But to escape and go out and harm anybody?" McKenna shook his head no. "I wouldn't want Pat McKenna as my neighbor, but I do want him up in Ely."
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