The story of Randy Canister Jr. has never evoked much sympathy. Most of the time, in fact, officials in Colorado have argued passionately for his speedy execution.
Because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that invalidated the three-judge-
panel system for sentencing in death-
penalty cases, Canister was determined ineligible for the death sentence. Next week, he is expected to get a mandatory life sentence without possibility of parole.
He was convicted of murder in 2002 for his role in the 1998 slaying of three Aurora teenagers involved in a drug deal. He had been a member of a California gang, and prosecutors portrayed him as the poster boy for the death penalty. So I wondered: How did he get so bad?
Canister’s court-appointed attorney, Mike Root, thinks he knows. Over the past five years, he has hired investigators, interviewed family members and struggled to understand this man so he can defend him effectively. It doesn’t matter that others view him as a sociopath; Root has come to love the guy.
“It’s not to excuse what he’s alleged to have done,” Root said. “It’s more a matter of looking for an explanation.”
Canister, 28, was born to a teenage mother in Compton, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles that devolved into a gang-infested ghetto of poverty after the major employers relocated to the Deep South in the 1960s and ’70s.
He was reared by his maternal grandparents, who lived in a tiny two-
bedroom house in a rough part of town.
Canister’s mother had a drug habit, and when the boy was 10 or 11 years old, her boyfriend would send Randy out to do drug deals for him. It was perfect training to be a gang member – not that anybody really needed qualifications to join.
“Basically, if you grew up in Compton, you were associated with a gang regardless of whether you wanted to be,” Root said. “Randy’s uncles were gang bangers, his mom was clearly a banger. We got to know them well over the course of the investigation, but when we first met them, they were scary dudes.”
The man Canister believes to be his father, Randy Canister Sr., also lives in Compton, on the nicer side of town. He’s an L.A. police officer. One of Root’s investigators, a former police officer, approached Canister Sr. to speak to him.
“Basically, he said, ‘I don’t want to talk about it,”‘ Root said. They even offered to pay for a blood test to determine paternity, and “we got no response.” Randy Canister Sr. did not return my call.
Root said Randy Sr.’s parents and his sister all accept Randy Jr. as family. Father and son look remarkably alike, and even the cop’s wife told investigators that she wishes her husband would come clean about the situation.
The fact that the man believed to be his father would never accept him has been painful for Canister, Root said.
“When we were investigating this, there was one vignette that always made me almost get teary-eyed.”
Root had heard the story from Canister and confirmed it through his aunt and grandparents.
“When he was young, he’d peddle his bike from the crappy little house where he grew up across town to the immaculately kept house a world away where … the police officer lived. He’d stand out on the lawn, waiting to see his father and hoping that some day he would acknowledge him.
“He never did,” Root said.
Once, after Canister had been depicted as a monster deserving of nothing less than the death sentence, Root asked him how it was possible that he never got angry, never complained to his attorneys.
“It was heart-wrenching,” Root said. “He told me, ‘I’ve never felt cared about like this in my life.’
“Now, if you’ve got a couple of court-appointed lawyers who are the people who’ve cared about you most in your life, that’s really sad.”
The story of Randy Canister Jr.’s life doesn’t justify anything, and it certainly doesn’t diminish the tragedy of his crimes. But Root is right: It does offer a kind of explanation.
Maybe it even serves as a reminder that for every crime there are many, many victims.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-820-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
