Defending A Serial Killer

The Right To Counsel

Jim Potts

• Publisher: Vesuvian Books
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781645480365
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Biografie nell'ambito delle scienze sociali

The Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States guarantee the right against self-incrimination, the right to remain silent, and the right to counsel. A crime wave swept California in the late 1970s. Several young girls were abducted, raped, and murdered. Michael Dee Mattson was convicted of these crimes and sentenced to death. Law clerk by day, family man by night. In 1982, Jim Potts—a brilliant, idealistic, African American law student—is honored when one of his professors recruits him to assist in writing a death penalty appeal on behalf of a serial killer. Potts discovers a loophole in the case that had somehow been overlooked. One that could not only get Mattson off death row, but once presented to the Supreme Court of California, could release him to rape and murder again. When Potts confides in his pregnant wife, she says if Mattson goes free, their marriage is over. But if Potts quits the case, or withholds information, he violates his duty to client and Constitution and risks his career before it even begins. A moral dilemma with no good way out. To avoid losing his family and releasing pure evil back into the world, Potts must be smarter than his options. He must find a way to keep his family together, fulfill his duties, and keep Mattson behind bars. But can he?

Chapter One

Background

It’s always easy to look back and point to “what should have been done.” Some call it “Monday morning quarterbacking,” others call it hindsight. Unfortunately, sometimes there is no other way to learn by our mistakes. We must be willing to look back. Here, I give credit to psychologists. They look at an individual’s past to try and find the root causes for an action someone may or may not have done. Likewise, historians look to the past so we can learn from rather than repeat our mistakes. My undergraduate degree is in history, and I regularly give speeches on the impact of domestic terrorism on America. In these seminars, I discuss past events for the sole purpose of helping the audience to understand that the concerns we are faced with today are not new. Society has a tendency to forget horrific events unless touched by it. Learning from lessons of the past is where my path crosses with Mattson’s.

My biological mother died unexpectedly when I was six months old, leaving my eighteen-month-old older brother and me with a single parent. To say my father was devastated is without question. After my mother’s funeral, he left my brother and I with my grandmother and returned to New York. Eighteen months afterward, he returned and took us to New York. There, we met the woman who would become my stepmother. She raised me as her own, but the road was a rocky one. Like Mattson, I had a stepparent with abusive tendencies and a father who later admitted he should have stepped in.

To this day I can recall my father sitting in our living room in Brooklyn, telling me Mother was not the woman who had given birth to me. I was five years old. After that, the first time my mother hit me I dependably told her, “Don’t put your hands on me. You’re not my real mother!” After I got up off the floor and regained my senses, I never made that particular comment again. This was only the beginning of a pattern of treatment exhibited by my stepmother toward me but not my siblings. On another such event, my mother beat me with her high-heeled shoe. Later, she and my father—who was a truck driver and often away from home—sent me to a psychiatrist. Dr. Pelligrini only saw me for a handful of sessions and told them, I presume, that I was normal.

After my parents divorced, Dad told me he would come in off the road only to hear from my mother, “Jimi this and Jimi that!” He grew tired of hearing such complaints, so he became distant. My sister, who is ten years younger, would later observe that I was the most aggressive out of her three older brothers, and had a tendency to “get under Mommy’s skin.” My brothers would probably agree. I was an extremely aggressive adolescent, and those were tough years until I left for college. Ironically, once I was gone, the relationship between my mother and I improved, and I came to appreciate how she made sure we went to the best schools, dressed well, and never went hungry. Perhaps we all have our childhood demons, and it is how we face those demons that defines who we are. However, while my story and Mattson’s share many parallels, he went down a much darker path.

Mattson’s parents, Jackie Barbara Harkness and Dee Junior Mattson, were married in Salt Lake City on June 9, 1950. Little did they dream they would deliver a monster into the world three years later. Michael was raised by a stepparent after his parents divorced and his mother remarried. From the age of six on, Mattson was abused by both his biological father and his stepfather. He also saw a psychiatrist in his younger years. Mattson’s siblings were also witness to how their father abused their mother, an experience I never encountered with my parents.

Growing up, Mattson was known to have a significant amount of fights, another thing he and I had in common. When I applied to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, recruits had to fill out a psychological questionnaire as a part of the background check. One of the questions asked about the number of fights I had been in while growing up. I put down twelve, a number which, quite honestly, was a little light. The psychologist who interviewed me expressed her concern I may be “too aggressive for the job.” When I asked her why she felt that way and she brought up the number of fights I had been in as a youngster, I explained mine was the only black family in our upstate New York town,  and my siblings and I the only black kids in the school we attended. As a result, I had to physically explain to some kids that I would not abide being called a “nigger.” She passed me with flying colors.

Drug use is another divergence on mine and Mattson’s paths. I didn’t see drugs until I went to college, whereas Mattson was introduced at a young age. For him, angel dust (PCP), sleeping pills, marijuana, LSD, and an overabundance of alcohol were an escape from the horrors of his everyday life. Mine was different; I found solace with sports and scouting and became an Eagle Scout, my first major accomplishment. My parents never saw me play sports, nor were they at my eighth grade or high school graduations. They were, however, present when I received my Eagle award—an unforgettable moment.

The principles I learned in Catholic school, as an altar boy, and in my scouting and sports activities, were my escapes. Mattson’s were illegal substances. I do not justify what Mattson did, but the principles I learned were in conflict with how Mattson conducted himself. I was able to overcome my difficulties because I was stronger than Mattson. I dealt with my issues head on which, as my older brother Charles has told me, led to some of the discourse I experienced in and outside the home.

In later chapters I show how Mattson’s background compares to his fellow serial killers. As one would expect, there are similarities. Parents need to understand how they mold their children into adults, and how this upbringing has an effect on a person’s mental and emotional state. My doctorate is not in psychology, however from a commonsense perspective we know how instrumental parents are to their child’s development. Aside from parents, mentors play a critical role as well. I had many who helped me along—my Scout Master, John Krom Sr., a retired New York State Trooper, and Bill McKenney Sr. who taught me how to experience and control feelings in a more positive way. I had balance in my life from these external factors. Mattson does not appear to have had any.

Chapter Two

Michael Dee Mattson

Even the type of person who can so easily snuff out the life of other human beings is still entitled to the full protection of the law. Of course, the question of why an individual, like Mattson, would commit the types of crimes he was accused of inevitably arises, especially in the judicial system. However, it does not take a degree of higher learning or a seat on a juror’s bench to understand kidnapping, raping, sodomizing, and murdering anyone, much less young girls, is not normal behavior.

So, who was Mattson? What really made him who he was? What made him commit the heinous acts he was found guilty of? As a layperson I could certainly speculate, but a more in-depth look by professional psychologists and his mother would be more advantageous, especially in comparing Mattson to other serial killers.

Michael Dee Mattson—aka Michael Dee Golyer—was born on July 23, 1953 in Salt Lake City, Utah, which was also the birthplace of his mother, Jackie Mattson Golyer. At the time of Mattson’s capture he was five feet and eleven inches, 165 pounds, with long dirty blond hair and blue eyes. According to statements by Ms. Goyler, Michael was abused when he was still in her womb. Ms. Goyler claimed her husband, Dee Mattson, drank excessively and beat her during her pregnancy. She also stated that Mattson’s father resented him on a daily basis; Dee Mattson openly classified his son as a weakling, a sissy, and felt “something was wrong with him.” In 1959, when Michael was six, his parents divorced. Soon thereafter, his mother married James Red Golyer, Michael’s stepfather, who also had a reputation for being abusive toward Jackie. When interviewed by Dr. Vicary, a court-appointed psychiatrist, Mattson’s mother stated her other children, William, Ronald, and Barbara, never had to endure the same mistreatment Mattson did.

There are other disturbing facts of note regarding Mattson’s childhood. At age six, his mother and stepfather took him to a psychiatrist. School officials reported Mattson was constantly hitting other children, sticking them with pins, and overall being obstinate and uncontrollable—unmanageable. The root cause of this behavior is unknown. Perhaps he was responding to the type of inappropriate behavior he witnessed on a regular basis at home.

Beyond schoolyard bullying, Mattson’s antics eventually took a more serious turn. Both Mattson and his parents confirmed that he routinely set fires and ripped the heads off pet pigeons owned by their next-door neighbor. Around the age of twelve, Mattson took a five-year-old boy into an orange field in the neighborhood, beat him, and made him eat a rotten orange and dirt. During this encounter, Mattson also inserted a stick or broomstick into the child’s rectum, then made him walk home nude. By this time Mattson was already on a path of destruction. One has to wonder, why was more corrective action by professionals not taken at this time? And what of the parents of the five-year-old boy—how did their child walk home nude with a story like this and not draw a reaction from his parents?

As he grew older, Mattson became more agitated. His mother and stepfather began to notice that, among other odd behaviors, he would stare into space for extended periods of time. Sometimes he would play the same song on the jukebox on repeat, other times he would erupt in fits of anger for no apparent reason and take long, solitary walks into the desert. These actions bewildered Mattson’s parents, but went unchecked. Another failing for sure.

Between the ages of twelve and sixteen, Mattson started abusing drugs, including barbiturates, sleeping pills, marijuana, and LSD, as well as beer and hard liquor. What remains unclear is how and where he got access to these substances.

By the time he reached seventeen, Vietnam was still raging and men who had not been drafted but were involved in criminal activity or otherwise considered juvenile delinquents were given the choice between jail, reform school, or the U.S. Armed Services. Even with all of his issues, Mattson was accepted into the Army. Shortly after his enlistment, he went Absent Without Leave (AWOL) and committed his first major crimes which sent him to prison. The pieces to the puzzle of his own self-destruction were moving into place, and nothing, including whatever support he may have had from his loved ones, could stop it.

In the summer of 1978, Mattson’s inner struggle exploded. For approximately four months, his anger and violence were unleashed, until he was finally caught and brought to justice in Nevada.

It’s easy to speculate why people do the things they do, good or bad. However, speculation is not equivalent with assessment. When an individual commits crimes like those committed by Mattson, the court goes through a process to determine whether or not the defendant has the mental fitness to stand trial. This part of our system of justice ensures a criminal defendant has every opportunity to fair proceedings under the law. Such was the case with Mattson. Dr. Alfred Cooley, a court-appointed psychiatrist licensed to practice medicine in the state of California, interviewed Mattson in September 1979 to determine if he was mentally fit to stand trial.

Dr. Cooley began by asking Mattson about the types of drugs and alcohol he was using when he committed the alleged crimes. Mattson admitted he had been a heavy drinker and had also used PCP repetitively for years. He also stated he had taken “downers”—sedative drugs like Seconal, a drug with hypnotic properties, and Nembutal, another hypnotic drug, for a long time. Dr. Cooley determined the use of all these drugs had contributed to disturbing Mattson’s mental functioning for the majority of his youth and young adulthood. Furthermore, Dr. Cooley felt the use of these drugs and Mattson’s “fragile ego structure” had combined to cause a breakdown of the usual ego functions. For Mattson, this meant psychotic thinking and behavior patterns typical to the type he had experienced in his youth.

There is little doubt Mattson’s violent childhood had a direct impact on his adult behavior. According to Cooley, Mattson had demonstrated a regressive pattern of sadistic action, with repetitive episodes determined by unconscious factors. Basically, Mattson’s habit of repeatedly hurting his victims stemmed from unconscious behaviors learned in his earlier years. His abuse of alcohol and drugs was likely the catalyst that caused a manifestation of those inner feelings. As an example, when Mattson killed his first victim, Cheryl, he was admittedly under the influences of alcohol and PCP. Cooley believed these same factors operated to diminish Mattson’s capacity to premeditate and deliberate in another victim, Adele’s, death. If Cooley was correct and Mattson’s behavior was the result of a mental defect, he would not have had the state of mind required to form the specific intent to commit the crimes. He simply acted.

Dr. Cooley considered Mattson a highly impulsive person and was of the opinion that Mattson’s judgment was impaired and had been so all his life. He also emphasized how Mattson’s behavior patterns were driven by his inner conflicts, which had been present since childhood and manifested themselves in an aggressive manner due to alcohol and drug use.

One of Mattson’s majo...

Table of contents

• From The Author
• Introduction
• Chapter One — Background
• Chapter Two — Michael Dee Mattson
• Chapter Three — The California Crimes
• Chapter Four — The Nevada Crimes
• Chapter Five — The Initial Investigation
• Chapter Six — Detective Pat Dingle
• Chapter Seven — The Arrest
• Chapter Eight — The California Investigations
• Chapter Nine — Juggling Family and School
• Chapter Ten — My Dilemma
• Chapter Eleven — The Criminal Charges
• Chapter Twelve — Professional Obligation
• Chapter Thirteen — Family versus Ethics
• Chapter Fourteen — Miranda Rights
• Chapter Fifteen — Consequences at Home
• Chapter Sixteen — Key Issues Resolved
• Chapter Seventeen — The Appeal
• Chapter Eighteen — Reversal
• Chapter Nineteen — Key Facts and Analysis
• Chapter Twenty — The Retrial
• Chapter Twenty-One — The Profile of a Serial Killer
• Chapter Twenty-Two — Mattson and the Hillside Stranglers
• Chapter Twenty-Three — Mattson, Bundy, and Gacy
• Chapter Twenty-Four — The Impact on the Family of the Victims
• Chapter Twenty-Five — Avoiding the Executioner
• Chapter Twenty-Six — The Opinion
• Chapter Twenty-Seven — Two Recent High-Profile Case Reversals
• Afterword
• About the Author