REDMOND – Growing up in a household dependent on welfare and government cheese, Redmond criminal defense attorney Geoff Gokey learned what it was like to be the underdog.

His father left the family in San Diego when Gokey was 7 years old. His mother loaded Gokey and his sister, Lorri, onto a bus to Portland, crying the entire way.

During his teenage years, he got into trouble with the law and found himself in fistfights. He was kicked out of two high schools by the time he was 14, and then he was arrested for joy riding and drinking alcohol.

”The way we grew up, if you listen to the psychologists and psychiatrists, Geoff should be one of the people he defends,” said his younger sister, Lorri Gokey.

The arrest gave him a taste of being on the wrong side of the law and a compassion for clients who face the ultimate punishment.

In the last five years, Gokey has become one of Central Oregon’s highest-profile death penalty lawyers. He is one of only four attorneys in the area certified to handle capital punishment cases.

He has represented a teen who admitted to killing his mother, another teen found guilty of murdering his adoptive father and a 20-year-old man who shot and killed his best friend on a footbridge in Drake Park in Bend.

”I walk in every time and know they are a human being, and they have typically done a terrible thing,” he said. ”But they will cry in front of you and weep, and the papers will be calling them a cold-hearted killer.

”They often have no one who cares about them, particularly with inter-family killings,” Gokey continued. ”Those rip families apart; those are horrible.”

Defending with compassion

Gokey stood beside Hawkin James Groenendaal in a Des-chutes County courtroom last month as the teen killer was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Groenendaal, 19, was found guilty of killing his father despite his protests that he never intended to end Bill Groenendaal’s life.

Gokey’s approach at the hearing was his norm: respect and deference, carried by a voice of authority.

He pleasantly addressed prosecutors and the judge on the bench while maintaining an aggressive defense of his client’s position.

He placed his hand on Groenendaal’s shoulder while speaking of the teen’s intelligence and profound remorse.

In February, Gokey appeared at a sentencing hearing for 20-year-old Peter Thomas Phillips.

Phillips will spend the next 15 years in prison for gunning down a teen he called his closest friend in Drake Park after an all-day drinking binge in September 2004.

Gokey told a judge about Phillips’ long history of alcohol abuse. He said his client was so intoxicated the night of the murder that he did not remember shooting his friend.

And Gokey represented 23-year-old Adam Squires Thomas, a young man who is one of Central Oregon’s most infamous killers.

Thomas admitted in March 2002 to planning and helping carry out his mother’s murder with four friends when he was 18.

They beat her with wine bottles and shot her, then stole her car and fled to Canada.

Thomas was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Gokey said Friday that he has also been appointed to represent Donnie Earl Asher, who was arrested this past week and accused of killing his 4-year-old stepson.

Gokey, like all death penalty lawyers in Oregon, is certified to handle capital cases. This means he must undergo specialized training and take additional continuing education classes on death penalty practice.

Gokey’s wife of 13 years, Diane Gokey, said her husband is committed to his clients’ best interests and spends countless hours traveling to visit them in jails around the state. The couple have no children together, but each has a daughter from previous relationships.

”I don’t think people realize the dedication this work takes,” she said.

On a recent day, her husband was out of the house at 3 a.m. and still on the road at 7 p.m. that evening.

Working to get ahead

Gokey developed his work ethic at an early age, when he had to help put food on the family table.

Lorri Gokey said her brother started working a paper route at 7 years old. The two picked beans and berries for farmers in the Portland area to help make ends meet.

”I remember he got beat up one time and I think robbed while he was on his route, and he just kept going because he knew we needed it,” she said.

One Christmas when the two were still young, she said, the family was living rent-free in a trailer through the charity of a family renting a ranch in Canyonville. His youngest sister, Stacy Edwards, was born while the family was living there.

”That was about the poorest of the poor,” Lorri Gokey said. ”Mom gave me a model car to make and I think Geoff got a book, and mom spent every penny she had to get us that stuff.”

Despite their struggles, the family still reveled in Christmas.

”I remember it was miserably cold and we were all huddled together, and my mom started singing in the worst singing voice ‘Silent Night,’ and we joined in. I remember that as the best Christmas ever.”

The family moved back to Portland, where Gokey became a rambunctious teen.

After his joy riding and alcohol arrest, a judge gave him the choice of going to reform school or moving out of town to live with family friends.

Gokey decided to go to White Salmon, the city he refers to as ”a tiny town across from Hood River,” where he finished high school.

By 16, Gokey was living on his own. He started out bagging groceries at an Erickson’s Sentry grocery store in White Salmon. He became manager at 19.

By 21, he was tapped to run the store in Redmond.

He didn’t realize the job would lead him to a legal career.

Redmond attorney Ron Bryant, a partner in the law firm where Gokey now works, was part owner of Erickson’s Sentry of Redmond.

”Ron always told me, ‘If you ever become a lawyer, give me a call. I don’t care what your grades are, call me,’” Gokey said.

He worked full time at the Redmond store to pay for classes at Central Oregon Community College, where he started out as a business major and made several lifelong friends.

Scott Reynolds, general manager of Employment Source Inc. in Bend, said he first came across Gokey during a debate in a class they had together. He was drawn to Gokey’s competitive edge.

”Here I was across the classroom and I didn’t know who this guy was, but he sure could debate,” he said.

Reynolds said that drive carries over into Gokey’s personal life, even when he is just hanging out with friends.

”When we get together at social gatherings, we always end up competing at something, whether it’s croquet or Frisbee golf,” Reynolds said. ”We politely compete, but Geoff will almost always start some debate about the rule book.”

Redmond Attorney Greg Colvin, who was one of Gokey’s roommates when they attended COCC, said his friend of 25 years has always taken care of others’ needs.

”Not only did he work at the store, but he was our grocery man as well,” Colvin said. ”He would bring them home, and we would split them up.”

He said Gokey played football and tennis and participated in student government, despite working full time and struggling to get by.

”There were times when Gokey lived in places that weren’t the nicest places and he had empty cupboards,” Colvin said. ”He was always on track to be a lawyer, and I think that was his main plan, and he worked hard to get there.”

But Gokey said the inspiration to practice law didn’t come to him until he was in college.

”I was always drawn to criminal work since I was a kid, but I didn’t always want to be a lawyer,” he said. ”Those are dreams that you don’t have as a welfare kid. You’re just trying to make a buck and buy a car and eating government cheese.”

Then, while managing the Redmond grocery store, Gokey saw Redmond attorney Bryant in action.

A legal dispute involving the store made its way to court, and Gokey was called as a witness.

Gokey said Bryant’s courtroom technique was inspiring, and after a brief exchange later, Gokey decided to go to law school.

He managed student housing while working as a bank courier to pay his way through Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland. He graduated in 1988.

He hung out his shingle, working with another lawyer in Portland, and took on ”everything that walked in the door.”

Then the call came.

A new path

Bryant asked Gokey to come to Redmond and work at his firm. Gokey joined the firm in 1990.

For 10 years, Gokey handled a range of cases, including criminal and domestic relations. He represented Deschutes County in cases to keep assets seized in criminal cases.

But criminal defense work enticed him.

Gokey handled his first death penalty case in 2000 and hasn’t looked back since.

He represented James Byron Coon, charged with murdering his girlfriend during a fight over drugs. Coon beat her up at a bar, threatened to kill her and later smothered her with a pillow at his Bend home.

He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

”After doing my first case, it didn’t appear to stress me out as much as I thought it would,” Gokey said. ”I had a lot of compassion for my client, but for some reason I didn’t find myself freaking out.”

Gokey views himself as a teacher, he said, who must educate his clients about death penalty law and bring them to terms with facing the ultimate punishment.

It can be a particularly difficult task with younger clients, he said.

”They usually know they’ve done something bad, but they do not understand initially how they’ve changed their life,” he said. ”Some of them have the idea that they may get out in a month or two because they have been in the juvenile system, and they are not.

”In reality, if they are facing the death penalty or a long prison stretch, it is not in their best interest to go to trial, and we tell them that,” he continued. ”With the death penalty, I tell them my first job is to save their life.”

He said he struggles with balancing his desire to take each case to trial against taking a chance that 12 jurors could vote for the death penalty.

”At some point, you have to put away your inner conflict and tell them the truth,” Gokey said. ”That’s the part I didn’t understand when I went into this work. You have to help someone you begin to know only months earlier make the biggest decision in their life, and you are dealing with people who typically haven’t made good decisions.”

Gokey’s dedication to protecting people facing the death penalty is a passion his wife didn’t understand at first. Then her husband defended a client who lost everything while locked up in jail waiting for his trial date.

She said the client was acquitted and released from jail at 11 p.m., with no money and no place to go.

”He called Geoff to come get him to take him to his nearest family because he didn’t even have a dime to call his family,” she said. ”That was the turning point where I saw the other side and thought, ‘What are we doing to help these people?’”

Gokey picked the man up, she said.

”I believe in the system and I believe people should be punished for what they do,” Diane Gokey said. ”But I believe there should be a balance, and people like Geoff bring that balance to the system.”

And that stalwart resolve has gained him the respect of the legal community.

”People don’t always appreciate that this is not a popular job, but it is essential to have skilled and capable people to do this so the criminal justice system works,” said Deschutes County Circuit Court Presiding Judge Michael Sullivan. ”And I appreciate that when (Gokey) shows up on any case, he is going to give it all that he has to give.”