Murder case has consumed much of twice-convicted man's life

Looking fit and more than a decade younger than his 60 years, Frank LaPena's 17 years behind bars weren't apparent Tuesday as he sat watching the Nevada Supreme Court arguments that would determine his future.

LaPena's chances for a wife and a family withered during his years in prison after two murder convictions and the quarter century the case has consumed. The case became his life; his lawyers and investigators his family.

After arguments before the Nevada Supreme Court -- which is sitting in North Las Vegas for a week -- LaPena sidestepped questions about the life that could have been.

His comments kept circling back to the case and what he termed a "vindictive" prosecution during two trials despite evidence that he contends always pointed elsewhere.

Not unexpectedly, prosecutors and police disagree. It is a case that has consumed them as well in its marathon of twists and turns. Retired Deputy District Attorney Mel Harmon returned as a special prosecutor to argue the appeal.

Watching the proceedings was former Metro Homicide Lt. Beecher Avants, who headed the original investigation and built the case against LaPena. He currently is a casino executive, but would be back as a witness if there were a third trial.

The case went to the high court because District Judge Gene Porter tossed out LaPena's 1989 conviction after concluding during a week-long hearing earlier this year that his trial attorneys hadn't done everything they should have to defend their client.

The district attorney's office appealed and if the high court sides with the prosecutors, LaPena will be returned to prison to serve a life prison term without possibility of parole.

But the Supreme Court already has expressed some concerns about the case. It was a high court decision a year ago that sent the case to Porter's court for a hearing on some questionable evidence.

At Tuesday's hearing, Chief Justice Charles Springer noted that the case has dragged on a quarter of a century. "Isn't there a time when a case ought to be put to rest?," he asked Harmon.

"I'm not impartial about murder," Harmon responded. "If it takes 100 years, we should pursue justice."

LaPena was arrested after the 1974 murder of Hilda Krause, the wife of Caesars Palace casino executive Marvin Krause, and convicted of hiring Gerald Weakland to kill her.

The prosecution theory was that the murder cleared the way for LaPena's girlfriend, Rosie Maxwell, to marry Krause and eventually inherit his wealth.

Maxwell also had been charged in the case, but she was acquitted at her trial.

Weakland had agreed to become the state's star witness after pleading to a second-degree murder count that would let him out of prison after five years, but he recanted his story and refused to testify against Maxwell or LaPena.

Yet LaPena was convicted and served nine years of a life sentence with the possibility of parole before that conviction was overturned in 1983 by the Nevada Supreme Court and he was freed on bail.

At LaPena's second trial in 1989, Weakland did testify and the result was another conviction. That time he received a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

But defense attorney David Schieck challenged the conviction and won a ruling from Porter because the trial attorneys hadn't probed the way prosecutors kept Weakland from winning parole until he testified.

"He sold his testimony for freedom," Schieck said, contending that it actually was Marvin Krause who arranged the murder of his wife by Weakland.

"I think the time has come that this case should be over," Schieck said.

But for that to happen, the high court must not only conclude that there was error in the trial, but that correcting the error would result in a different verdict.

Harmon conceded that LaPena may not have gotten a perfect trial, but he argued that he did get a fair trial.

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