Opinion ID: 1115902
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: facts

Text: On December 3, 1980, Frank and Linda Strode returned from a Thanksgiving trip to their home in an isolated part of Pershing County near Majuba Mountain, where they resided with Frank's parents, Emery and Mary Strode, and Frank's sister, Meriam Strode Treadwell. When they entered the parents' trailer, they found the dead bodies of Emery, Mary and Meriam under a blanket in a bedroom. Emery had been shot three times and stabbed twice with a knife which was left in his chest. A pocket watch discovered in Emery's shirt pocket had been struck by one of the bullets; the hour hand of the watch was stopped at one o'clock. Mary had been stabbed in the back and shot in the chest. Meriam, whose wrists were bound with an electric cord, died from a single gunshot wound in her back. Emery and Meriam kept daily diaries. The last entry in both diaries was recorded on the morning of December 2, 1980. On December 1, 1980, between 4:30 and 5 p.m., Robert Schott gave defendant a ride from Winnemucca to Imlay. As soon as Rogers climbed into Schott's truck, he looked nervously in both the back of the truck and the rear view mirror. Defendant introduced himself as John and claimed that he was a musician going to Reno to look for a job. At one point during the drive, defendant blurted out: You may not believe it but I am a good American. You may not believe it but I'm on your side. I would fight for my country. On December 2, 1980, between approximately 12:15 and 12:45 p.m., David Hartshorn, a geologist working at the Majuba Hill Mine, observed Rogers standing alongside a road near Majuba Canyon and offered him a ride. During the ride, Hartshorn gave defendant a can of Seven-Up to drink. Defendant stated that [s]omebody is shooting rockets ... and one of these days it will hit my pyramid and blow me up. Rogers alighted at the Strode residence with the Seven-Up can in hand. Between 12:30 and 2 p.m. that same day, Ray Horn, a mechanic at a nearby mine, was driving on a county road near Majuba Mountain. As he passed a dark metallic blue truck, a slender young man driving the truck shot at Horn several times. Between 3:30 and 4 p.m., Earl L. Smith, a highway maintenance worker saw Rogers standing on a road between Denio and Winnemucca and provided him a ride because defendant had run out of gasoline. Rogers was later observed traveling at an extremely high rate of speed in a blue truck, which was identified by its license number as the Strodes' truck. On December 5, 1980, Rogers was refused entry into Canada. In conversing with a Canadian police officer, Rogers indicated that he was the King of North America. On January 4, 1981, defendant was arrested in Florida when he was seen riding on the bumper of a car, holding on to a luggage rack. After he was arrested, Rogers told police that God knew him and that we were all a part of mother nature. During fingerprinting, defendant refused to speak and wrote on a piece of paper that he belonged to the government. Later at the jail, defendant claimed that he had killed the Strode family in self-defense. Rogers' fingerprints were lifted from various items in the Strode residence, including a Seven-Up can and a glass jar found in the bedroom under the blanket with the victims' bodies. At trial, the defense presented the testimony of several expert witnesses which indicated defendant was a paranoid schizophrenic at the time of evaluation and that defendant's behavior at the time of the commission of the crimes was consistent with psychotic paranoid delusions, schizophrenia and psychosis and that Rogers could not tell right from wrong or the nature and quality of his acts. One psychologist believed that defendant, who was trained in acting, was faking his symptoms. After finding the defendant guilty of the crimes charged, the jury imposed the death penalty for the three murder convictions, and prison terms for the attempted murder and grand larceny. Defendant now appeals the judgment of conviction and the imposition of the death penalty.