A hard-boiled detective who hates the big sleep August 20 2002 Fighting the system ... Rachel Sommerville. Photo: Bryan Charlton Penelope Debelle meets an Australian-born investigator who specialises in saving American murderers from execution. After saving a black American murderer from death row, Australian legal investigator Rachel Sommerville received a thank-you note, much in the nature of a courtesy note after a pleasant dinner. "Thank you for saving my life," the young man wrote. Its simple message helped validate the path she has taken. Motivated by a deep hatred of, and opposition to, the entrenched role of capital punishment in American law, she works as a criminal defence investigator in San Francisco, saving killers when she can. Australia and Britain gave up executing their worst criminals decades ago, but there are 600 Americans on death row in California alone. Sommerville, who went to the US for six months, married a local and now lives and works in California, does not believe the laws are about to change. A recent amendment excusing the mentally retarded from the death penalty had given hope to some abolitionists but Sommerville says it means the reverse: America is dealing with some of the grosser aspects of its capital punishment laws just because they will remain in place. "Politicians in America have to say they believe in the death penalty or they are scared they will be seen as not tough on crime," she says. In the Californian judiciary, which still executes about three people a year, the final decision on execution is made not by a judge but a jury. Sommerville, an Adelaide University graduate with a masters degree in psycho-social studies, is one of a growing number of women whose job is to collect material that will convince the jury that a person may be guilty of a dreadful crime but they should not be put to death. They work as private investigators, piecing together scraps of broken lives into a story that might persuade a jury to sentence the accused to life in jail, not death. This can call for courtroom tactics that exploit the emotions of jurors to convince them that what they have before them is not an animal but a man. "We do everything to give them their humanity back," Sommerville says. "That can be as much as showing a photograph of our client holding his baby brother in his arms, constantly showing he is a human being." The concept of innate evil embodied in the fictional killer Hannibal Lecter has done the anti-capital punishment cause enormous harm. The popularisation through Hollywood of the idea of a killer as pure, calculating evil emphasised the distance in most jurors' minds between the murderer and his humanity. "Hannibal Lecter is a very strong image in some jurors' minds," Sommerville says. "They think these guys are smart, they think they know how to beat the system, that they are highly dangerous. They are slightly shocked to see even a smile from them - they don't see a human being in front of them." To mount an argument that will explain in human terms why a person committed murder, Sommerville delves into their lives, confronting family members, neighbours, former friends or teachers who may know something that helps to explain what they have become. It also means driving to unfamiliar parts of California and entering neighbourhoods where white women are not always welcome. She never rings first - it is too easy for people to hang up - preferring to turn up on doorsteps. "You have about 30 seconds," she says. "And you have to talk really quickly so they don't close the door on you and you don't scare them. You have to make it sound like they are doing the most natural thing in the world to tell you secrets." The Australian accent helps because it throws them off guard and disarms them. "Where are you from?" they ask. She tells them she is trying to help someone they might remember who is facing a serious charge. "Most people want to help," she says. Sommerville believes murderers are moulded by life's experiences, particularly in their relationships with others. She can almost pinpoint the moment when life failed them and the killer started to take shape. One young man faced such a moment when he went to live with a foster mother who liked him and offered a role model and a value system he could follow. But her son turned on him and the relationship broke down. She interviews killer clients in shackles in unpleasant prison environments and, with the exception of Donald - the man who wrote to her and who has turned his life around in jail - will never see any of them again. Every so often she returns to Australia - this time to holiday in Byron Bay - so the poison can seep from her system and she can unwind. America is not necessarily a more violent culture but she is wary of what she calls "a northern Californian craziness" that puts everyone on edge to make sure they are being heard. She was with a friend in Adelaide last week who beat another driver to a parking space and laughed over it. "I would not have done that in the United States. I would have let the other person get it because I don't trust their reaction," she says. "A lot of people carry guns. I am always asked where my gun is because I am an investigator." The easy access to guns explains many deaths, she says, particularly among youths where gang-related killings are daily ruining lives. "The joke now is that these guys don't know how to fist-fight," Sommerville says. "They are so used to pulling out their guns they don't know how to survive in youth prison."