Off The Ropes: The Ron Lyle Story. Candace Toft

25 years for a killing he claimed was in self-defense.

       Ronnie Lyle, second oldest in a family of 15 children, received the penalty on a Denver District Court jury conviction for second-degree murder.

       A 6-foot-4-inch semipro basketball player, Lyle admitted pumping three bullets into Douglas Byrd, 22, to climax an afternoon-long gang fight in east Denver May 16, 1961.

       Dan Diamond and John Mueller, defense attorneys, urged leniency on grounds that Lyle became involved in the fatal dispute only to protect a friend who was being abused.

       They claimed Lyle obtained a gun only after Byrd threatened to kill him. The actual shooting occurred when Lyle thought Byrd was coming at him with a dangerous weapon, the lawyers said.

       Report Made

       Probation officers, in a report to Judge Gerald E. McAuliffe, described Byrd as a “belligerent individual who was quite prone to hit with any weapon available and could be counted upon to really bruise an opponent.” Lyle, on the other hand, normally had good habits and came from a family in which the father was a part-time minister, the report said.

       Judge McAuliffe said there were several factors working against Lyle as shown by the trial evidence.

       Lyle failed to avoid a showdown with Byrd, refused to call police although allegedly “in fear of his life,” and made a specific trip to borrow a gun over an uncle's objection just before the slaying, the judge said.

       “The jury rejected your claim of self-defense,” McAuliffe said. “You took the law into your own hands.”

       The background report to the court showed that Lyle's mother expressed sorrow over the killing but accepted the trial result philosophically.

       “Mrs. Lyle remarked that she hopes that some good will come out of all this—namely, that her other children will learn by the mistake Ronnie made and will disassociate themselves from evil companions from now on,” the report said.

       Defense counsel said there will be no appeal of the conviction. They said they would not risk a possible death penalty or life sentence in another trial.

      ■ ■ ■

Ron says his vivid memory of May 16, 1961, begins to fade after the police arrive. He knows he and his friends spent many hours in the police station, but he doesn't remember exactly how long. He remembers being told they would all stay in jail until somebody confessed, but he doesn't remember when he decided to tell them he shot Flash Byrd. He remembers being locked up, but he doesn't remember how long it was before a public defender showed up.

      Ron seems surprised when reminded he spent more than a year in jail, first awaiting trial, then starting over when a mistrial was declared and finally waiting for the verdict, followed by the sentencing. It hardly registered that he would spend fifteen to twenty-five years in prison. Mostly, he remembers his mother crying.

      Dennis Nelson, who didn't even know Ron back then, but who would eventually become a lifelong friend, says with conviction, “I know Ron didn't pull the trigger, and I know that he would never roll over on a friend—never.”

      Members of the family react to the sentence today the same way they did then. Kenny still can't believe it happened. His big brother, “always loved, respected, admired, going to prison. How could that be?”

      Sharon remembers her fear first of all—that her protection was gone. Sister Marilyn felt the same way. “Without Ron, we knew we would now be meat to eat.”

      Bill was most concerned about their mother. “She was devastated. Ronnie was close to her in a way none of the rest of us were.”

      Donna was “angry, hurt, disappointed, even disgusted, but mostly hurt. How could he do that to us?”

His family would eventually learn to cope with the loss of their favorite son, but the life Ronnie Lyle had known was finished. He would leave his family and his friends to enter an environment worse than anything he could have imagined, but one which would also lead to his triumph.

      2

      Cañon City

      Ron tried to apply the lessons he had learned in Buena Vista to life in the state penitentiary, but he lost his way almost immediately. Reform-school rules are woefully inadequate for doing hard time. And Cañon City was harder time than most.

      Conditions in “Old Max” were so appalling that as late as 1977, prisoner Fidel Ramos sued the state, charging that the Department of Corrections was inflicting cruel and unusual punishment on its inmates. A federal judge agreed—but too late for Ron Lyle and the hundreds of prisoners that served with him.

      “Ramos was, without a doubt, the case that led to the modernization of Colorado prisons,” says David Miller, former legal director of the Colorado ACLU. “People forget that Old Max was a hellhole. Cells were twenty-eight square feet, and people were locked down in them for long periods of time. Sewage came up the pipes. The food was often inedible. Violence was rampant. The stronger inmates really ran the prison.”¹

      During the time Ron was incarcerated, murders were so frequent they seemed commonplace to the inmates. The most gruesome method was fashioning a gas bomb and throwing it into a cell, burning the adversary alive.

Probably because of his size, Ron found himself constantly being challenged by inmates who bore no resemblance to the kids he knew in reform school. Most prisoners were still black and Chicano, but the brotherhood between the races that had strengthened the friendships there did not exist in Cañon City. He was as likely to be tripped or pushed by a black or Chicano guy as by a white one. And he pushed back.

      Within weeks of his arrival, Ron found himself locked up in solitary confinement for fighting. On subsequent occasions, he found himself in lockdown with all the other inmates for no other reason than as an “administrative” measure. Prisoners were often kept in their cells between twenty-two and twenty-three hours a day, without congregate dining, exercise, work opportunities, or religious services, let alone reading material.

      Nellie Lyle traveled to Cañon City almost every week to visit her son, sometimes driven by Bill, other times taking the four-hour bus trip. On several occasions that first year, she arrived at the prison only to find that she couldn't see him because he was in solitary confinement or lockdown. She would wait for the return bus, hoping to see him when she took the trip again the next week.

      Ron trusted no one, keeping to himself as much as he could. But when threatened, he always gave at least as much as he got. At one point, after a fight, he'd been stripped, thrown into quarantine, and left there for twenty-three hours. Finally released to the yard, he wandered dazed, wondering if he was going crazy.

      One of the old-timers walked right up to him and told him he needed to follow three rules and he'd be okay: “First, mind your own business.” So far, so good; Ron knew that rule from Buena Vista.

      “Second, don't go into another man's cell; and third, don't steal anything from anybody.”

      He followed those three rules all the time he stayed in Cañon, but he got into trouble, anyway, because he wouldn't take guff from anyone. “Don't stick a stake in a lion's den,” was Russ Perron's explanation of Ronnie fighting other prisoners. “Remember, he was pretty disillusioned.”

      Disillusioned and bitter, Ron had no reason to believe he would spend less than fifteen years in Cañon, maybe up to twenty-five. Life seemed over before it could begin. “I was a troublemaker. For a long time I didn't know how to live there—in