Arrest

Luis V. Rodriguez and his on-again-off-again girlfriend, Margaret Klaess, whiled temporarily homeless, unemployed, and periodically staying at various motels, were arrested on December 24, 1978 in Richmond California, for the alleged homicides of two California Highway Patrolmen.
The deaths occurred on December 22, 1978 at about 3:30 in the morning, alongside the Interstate Freeway I-80 in Yolo County, just outside of Sacramento California. Officer Roy Paul Blecher was found handcuffed behind his back and shot in the head, execution style. Officer Mike Freeman was found sprawled next to officer Blecher, shot several times, also with a bullet wound to his head. Newspapers speculated that the officers had been making a routine traffic stop on a light colored car at the time they were killed (San Francisco Chronicle).
Luis V. Rodriguez was arrested at a time when California´s Death Penalty law had become reactivated and the political terms ´War on Crime´, ´ Tough on Crime´, were on a political roll. It was during a time when racial tensions and confrontations were at a peak between the Yolo County law enforcement and Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and AfricanAmericans. These tensions often manifested themselves through selective enforcement of laws and police brutality against these groups.

Apprehended on the basis of composite drawings related to a robbery, known travel plans, and allegations from police informants (criminals and drug addicts) casting suspicion on Rodriguez and Klaess, they were taken into custody by the Richmond police. At the time of their arrest, they placed Rodriguez on the ground spread-eagle, and placed two shotguns against his head, telling him that they ought to blow him away right there and save the tax-payers some money. They then placed Rodriguez and Klaess both in the same patrol vehicle, (there had been approximately thirty officers on the scene and numerous patrol vehicles).
The officer simply informed them, " You don´t have to say anything," (apparently that was the officer´s version of reading then their Miranda Rights). It was discovered later that the officers had placed a tape-recorder within the patrol car to record any conversations that Rodriguez and Klaess might  have while thinking that they could speak freely. There were no incriminating statements made by either Rodriguez or Klaess on the tape recording, but this was to begin a seemingly neverending pattern of concerted and conspiratorial actions by the police and prosecutors to knowingly and intentionally violate Rodriguezâ and Klaessâ Constitutional rights, and to go to any lengths they believed necessary to acquire a conviction in this case.

While being processed through the Richmond County Jail, Rodriguez was choked and beaten by officers.All of his clothes were taken from him and he was given a paper jump-suit and paper slippers to wear. Rodriguez and Klaess were then both taken out in chains through a side exit door, which was not the usual transport door.
However, the police and prosecutors had already set up numerous news media people outside that door to intentionally have Rodriguez and Klaess photographed and to have their identities aired on almost every television station throughout the United States. Rodriguez would later realize the purpose of this news media set-up; to expose the faces of Rodriguez and Klaess to any and all possible persons who might want to become a witness against them and for them to be able to identify the alleged suspects in these crimes, thereby tainting all possible witness identifications against them. This ãmedia conferenceä fulfilled their wishes and tainted false identifications against Rodriguez resulted.

His treatment was no better in the years he was to spend awaiting trial in Yolo County Jail and in the San Mateo County Jail while being detained on a no-bail hold for the alleged homicides between 1978 and 1981. For periods of time while in the county jails, Rodriguez was held incommunicado, unable to receive visits from attorneys, family or friends and unable to correspond or receive any correspondence.
He was denied telephone access, personal hygiene necessities, such as toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, comb, or even shoes. Immediately after being processed into the Yolo County Jail, Luis was deprived of sleep for almost three days while being questioned, photographed, and and forced physically to submit to the takings of physical specimens, such as hair, saliva, blood, and fingernail clippings.
Rodriguez´ food was brought inedible, cold, and dusty. He was taken to his arraignment within 72 hours after his arrest looking like a madman with his hair disheveled, no shoes or socks, as well as showing the effects of having been deprived of sleep and nourishment.
Yet, Margaret Klaess, who had been charged with the same crimes and in the same jail, was receiving not only various cosmetics, but cigarettes and outdoor exercise, along with the privilege of taking her meals in the regular dining hall with other inmates. (Rodriguez had immediately been placed in a secluded isolation section of the jail where they had moved out all other inmates in order to completely isolate him). Additionally, Luis would later learn that Margaret had a television and radio in her cell, as well as access to newspapers. Margaret´s family had already secured an attorney who appeared with her at the arraignment, while Rodriguez´s family was still  attempting to secure an attorney for him. What Rodriguez didn´t know at the time was that Margaret´s attorney was already attempting to get Margaret to make statements against Rodriguez in order to implicate him in the homicides or to cast guilt upon him.

The news media would continue to play a crucial role in the handling and outcome of this case, but thiswould be only second to the very devastating impact that the police and prosecutorial misconduct would have.
On December 27, 1979, the Yolo County District Attorney and the captain of the Sheriff´s Department were quoted in the newspaper and on television news stating that the case against Luis and Margaret was only circumstantial and that their only hope of a conviction would depend upon the willingness of one of the suspects to talk. Both Rodriguez and Klaess had exercised their right to remain silent since the time of their arrest. Jailers had also informed the news media that Margaret had been on an ´emotional roller coaster´ ever since her incarceration.

The County Jail officers and the prosecutor clearly knew that Margaret Klaess was emotionally and psychologically unstable. They also knew of her extreme possessiveness and jealousy towards Rodriguez, as they had specifically been reading, monitoring, and photocopying any mail sent between Rodriguez and Klaess. Klaess had been writing such sentiments emphatically to Rodriguez, even telling him that she wanted to marry him, have his baby, and pleading with him not to write or see other women.

On January 1, 1979, Rodriguez received a surprise visit from a women he had previously had a relationship with. At the visit, the women attempted to give Rodriguez her address so that he could write to her. Rodriguez tried to memorize the address since he didnât have any paper or pencil to write it down. He apparently did not remember the address correctly and later that evening, when he wrote a short ´love´ note to the women, he placed it in an envelope with the wrong address.
Rodriguez mailed the letter by giving it to the County Jail officer without the envelope being sealed (as was the customary procedure of mailing personal mail through the jailhouse). Within three days that letter was given to Margaret Klaess by the County Jail officer, who had been given the specific assignment to monitor Rodriguez´ and Klaess´ mail, and to photocopy any information which might be incriminating in the case against them or concerning other possible crimes. Upon being given the letter that Rodriguez had written to another woman, Klaess began screaming and crying, yelling hysterically that, ´ Louis is a traitor,´ ´a lying son of a bitch!´ and stating ´ He´s guilty, he killed those officers!´. Officers and prosecutors were quickly there to provide Margaret with a complete immunity deal and immediate release if she would continue to say Luis had committed the murders.

After being exposed to all the news reports concerning the case and evidence the police and prosecutors were collecting, as well as after reading all the police reports her attorney had given her, Margaret was in a position, with the help of her attorney, to fabricate quite a convincing story implicating Rodriguez as the sole perpetrator in the killing of the two officers.

To cinch the immunity deal with Margaret, the prosecutors requested she take a polygraph test. The polygraph test was given to Klaess using completely erroneous dates, making the entire test invalid and worthless.
Yet, prosecutors knowing this, continued on with the immunity deal and simply hid the test results from Rodriguez and his attorneys for several years, until after he was convicted and on Death Row.

Margaret Klaess was released from jail on January 22, 1979, after testifying in Rodriguez´ preliminary hearing. Klaess´ immunity deal included absolution from numerous crimes ranging from the homicides to robberies and a variety of drug charges, and later to include ongoing immunity for Klaess for any crimes she would continue to commit while waiting to testify against Rodriguez in his trial.
In July, 1979, County Jail officers allowed an incarcerated police informant (an ex-death row prisoner who had previously been convicted again for various counts of child-molestation against his twelve year old step-daughter and assault with a deadly weapon against his wife), to smuggle a tape-recorder into the jail in an attempt to record Rodriguez while attempting to engage him in incriminating conversations. Although the tape recording was fruitless and unsuccessful, the police and prosecutor still attempted to put him on the federal payroll as a federally protected witness for testify against Rodriguez. Unfortunately for the prosecutor, a Yolo County court judge rejected the immunity deal due to the horrendous crimes the informant had committed. Attempting secure some form of assistance in the case and protections, this prisoner continued to attempt to assist prosecutors with malicious lies against Rodriguez which could neither be proven nor fully disproven. This was not the only witness of this type that would come forward, offering false statements against Rodriguez in exchange for some type of reward, immunity, favors, or police protection.

At about the same time of these fabrications in July, 1979, the County Jail officers conducted an illegal search and seizure upon Rodriguez´ confidential attorney-client legal files which he maintained within his jail cell.
When Rodriguez attempted to complain about these actions, the jailers placed him in complete incommunicado, turned off the water into his cell, threw food and liquids at him through the bars, and placed him on disciplinary status.

Margaret Alice Judith Klaess had been a runaway, drug user, and prostitute since the age of twelve.
Additionally, Margaret Klaess had been committed to a mental hospital on three different occasions while suffering from hallucinations, resulting from her extensive use of PCP (an animal tranquilizer). Klaess had admitted to prosecutors and police that she had continued to suffer from periodic flashbacks and hallucinations caused by her previous use of PCP. Margaret was also very well known to be a pathological liar, yet none of these things mattered to the prosecution even when she admitted to committing perjury against Rodriguez in the preliminary hearing. The police and prosecutor were only concerned with acquiring a conviction against Rodriguez, at any cost and any means necessary. Klaess was an easily manipulated and confused eighteen year old, and the police and prosecutors used her as a weapon against Rodriguez. She was the only witness the prosecutors could produce who would say that it was Rodriguez at the crime scene and who committed the murders. Other witnesses described seeing a man at the crime scene whose description was completely inconsistent with that of Rodriguez.