Jim Walsh

The Arizona Republic

Fire evidence from trial discredited



Taylor focusing on his second chance in life

Arizona Justice Project helped gain Taylor%27s release

TUCSON, Ariz. — Louis Taylor cries easily when he thinks about the 42 years he spent in prison before a judge released him with credit for time served in connection with one of Arizona's worst tragedies, a fire at the historic Pioneer Hotel that claimed 29 lives.

Taylor knows there is no point to reliving the past, though he is quick to say he is an innocent man who became a scapegoat in a racially charged time.

He has been free since April and says he is focused on his present and future, making a difficult but welcome transition to a new world of freedom rather than confinement.

Freedom, "it's the most precious thing in the world," Taylor said during an interview at his apartment near in Tucson. "I am just so thankful I am free and able to enjoy my freedom.

"All I can do is move forward. All of the people who did a bad deed, I forgive them."

Without forgiveness, "the rest of my life would be bitter," Taylor said.

The Pioneer Hotel fire is an unforgettable catastrophe in Tucson. Most victims died of smoke inhalation. At least two families were wiped out entirely. The death toll was highest on the upper floors because of difficulty reaching and evacuating victims. Taylor's release capped a decades-long battle for justice that also rekindled some bad memories for the loved ones of the victims.

Taylor says he has forgiven those involved in his conviction, but at other times, he sounds as if he is making his own closing argument at the new trial that his all-star team of attorneys requested but was never necessary. They argued in their petition that there was no evidence that the Pioneer was torched or that Taylor was responsible.

Faced with little remaining evidence, a discredited fire expert and the deaths of some potential witnesses, Pima County prosecutors offered Taylor a plea deal that bought him his freedom but deprived him of his long-desired goal of exoneration.

Taylor pleaded no contest to 28 counts of second-degree murder. He was first jailed at 16, went to prison at 17 and was released at 59. The no-contest plea left him a felon, even if most people he meets think he got a bum rap, said Andy Silverman, a University of Arizona law professor who worked on his case for 12 years and is now serving as Taylor's mentor, coaching him through his re-entry into the free world.

"I never hurt anybody. I never started a fire," Taylor said, repeating twice that he should have taken his late mother's advice and stayed home the night of Dec. 20, 1970, instead of going to a pool hall and then to the Pioneer, where he said he was looking for a party.

"I don't know how trying to put out a fire and trying to save people would cost me 42 years," he said.

Taylor said he became emotional when he returned to the former Pioneer Hotel, now the Pioneer Plaza office building, after he was released and he flashed back to that awful night, a night that would change his life and the lives of victims and their families forever.

"I tried to save them," he said. "We couldn't save everybody. We tried to save everybody we could."

Now, Taylor is dedicated to making the most of his opportunity at a second chance in life. He said he appreciates the friendship of Silverman and other attorneys associated with the Arizona Justice Project, who worked tirelessly to win his release, and the volunteers who are still working to help him make his new life a success.

These mentors include Silverman; former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Stanley Feldman and his wife, Norma, who also live in Tucson; and veteran Phoenix defense attorney Larry Hammond, who is chairman of the Justice Project.

"Louis grew up in prison," Silverman said, and did not have the opportunity to gradually learn the life skills that most people take for granted, such as how to manage money, having a bank account or renting an apartment.

He also re-entered a highly technological world that tends to mystify him. For instance, he had trouble answering his new cellphone. He became so frustrated with a computer that he gave it away.

"It's imperative. It's very important" that Taylor succeed as a free man, Silverman said. "He's 59 years old. He has to make his own decisions and lead his own life. I don't look at myself as a baby-sitter. I surely would try to do anything I could to keep him out of trouble."

Silverman said most of Taylor's family had died by the time he was released from prison, so he had no natural support system to help him with his transition, leaving his attorneys in a role they usually find uncomfortable.

At first, Taylor worked at the Loft Cinema, which shows foreign and limited-release films, doing landscaping work.

He now works at an antiques store as a jack of all trades. He is looking for a more permanent job and has some marketable skills. He speaks Spanish fluently and worked as a medical technician in prison.

"He's inexperienced," Silverman said. "He's learning things at 59 that we learned in our late teens or in our early 20s on our own."

Hammond said he will always respect Taylor and be his friend, no matter what happens to him in the future. He said his experience in clearing two other defendants accused of murder in arson cases, John Henry Knapp and Ray Girdler, taught him a great deal about fire behavior and prepared him for helping Taylor.

"I had no doubt about his innocence from the beginning," Hammond said. "I knew the things the fire-expert witness had testified to (were) wrong, and I had no doubt that it was incorrect."

Hammond said that flashover, where gases in a room or other space catch fire, was not understood in the 1970s and that there was no evidence the fire was set.

In fact, a laboratory in California that examined evidence collected after the fire found no accelerants, disputing witnesses who claimed Taylor had splashed lighter fluid on a wall.

"It was very satisfying (when Taylor was released from prison)," Hammond said. "He became a very special person to us."

In many ways, Taylor said, he was a perfect candidate for being a scapegoat. He had a juvenile record and was a high-school dropout.

He had five books of matches in his possession the night he was arrested, a critical factor argued by prosecutors during his 1972 trial. Taylor dismisses that, saying he had matches because he was a smoker.

"It was a bad time to have matches," Taylor now admits.

After his conviction, Taylor found himself learning to survive in prison while other teens his age were learning to drive. His path in prison also was strewn with pitfalls.

He racked up several disciplinary violations and was stabbed in the jaw.

"Four decades is a long time," Taylor said. "It's a lifetime for some people. Some babies never make it out of the womb. I thank God I persevered through all of that."

A small, wiry man with an animated, easygoing demeanor, Taylor said he prefers to ride his bicycle, which he considers a symbol of freedom, and he has no desire to learn to drive.

In the weeks after his release, he first hiked to find strength through nature but eventually focused on bicycling. He would pick out one night a week and ride his bicycle for hours, exploring how his birthplace had grown during his four decades behind bars.

Taylor struggled with living alone after decades of life in a cell with detention officers watching his every move.

Immediately after his release, "it was hard to adjust to living in a condo," Taylor said. "You would find me out riding at 2-3 a.m. I just got a little scared."

But he said his biggest error was trusting the wrong people who stole from him even though he has few possessions. He lists picking the right friends as his biggest challenge.

"It's finding good people, good friends. I found the wrong people," Taylor said.

He said his case should caution people against rushing to judgment without knowing all the facts, that he could have been executed by now if the jury in his Phoenix trial had not shown mercy because of his age.

"Be fair, be impartial," he said.