James Michael Francke (; October 2, 1946 – January 17, 1989) was a New Mexico judge and director of the state's Corrections Department, the governmental bureau which manages prisons, inmates and parolees. He was later appointed by then-Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt to oversee a plan to double the state's inmate capacity as director of Oregon's Department of Corrections. On January 18, 1989, his body was discovered outside the department's office building in Salem; an autopsy determined he had been murdered the night before. A local petty criminal was eventually tried and convicted for the crime, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. However, the convicted killer maintains his innocence, and several conspiracy theories have been advocated, claiming that the killing was a murder for hire conducted by corrupt state prison officials threatened by an investigation Francke was conducting into prison mismanagement.
A 1995 film Without Evidence, written by Gil Dennis and Phil Stanford, an Oregon columnist who has investigated the case extensively, was based on the Francke murder and subsequent investigations by Kevin Francke, Michael's brother.
The Association of State Correctional Administrators annually awards the Michael Francke Award to the top corrections administrator in the United States.
Early life and education
Francke, a native of Kansas City, Missouri, attended New Mexico Highlands University on a football scholarship, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in a combined major of political science, economics, German, and French. He then attended the University of Virginia Law School on a scholastic scholarship, graduating with a law degree in 1971, and was subsequently admitted to the Virginia bar. For the next three years, he served as a judge advocate general in the United States Navy, at Long Beach Naval Station.
Career
In 1975, he was admitted to the bar in New Mexico, and worked as an assistant attorney general and counsel to the New Mexico Corrections Department. He served in this capacity until 1980, when he became a judge for the First District Court in Santa Fe. He served as a judge for three years, and in 1983 became the director of the New Mexico Department of Corrections.
In May 1987, Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt hired Francke to fill the corresponding position in Oregon. He was hired with a remit to address problems in the state's Department of Corrections (ODOC). During his tenure, he had been criticized by some in the Oregon Legislature for cost overruns and delays in a state prison construction program.
Murder
Early on the morning of January 18, 1989, a security guard found Francke's body lying in a pool of blood on the floor of the North Portico of the Dome Building (the headquarters office of ODOC, not to be confused with the Oregon State Capitol building) in Salem. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a stab wound to the heart suffered the night before, and also revealed other "defensive wounds". Francke was last seen alive by Dome Building staff at approximately 6:45 p.m. on January 17. Two senior staff leaving the Dome Building approximately 40 minutes later discovered his car parked in its designated spot outside the front entryway with the driver's door open. No obvious signs of forced entry on the vehicle were observed. The staffers locked and closed the car door, and returned to the Dome Building where they made numerous phone calls to other senior staffers in an effort to determine Francke's whereabouts, all to no avail. Security was notified at the nearby Communications Center, and the staffers left the Dome Building at approximately 8:05 p.m. Two other senior staffers, Richard Peterson, head of Institutions, and David Caulley, head of Planning and Budget, arrived at approximately 8:35 p.m. and conducted what they described as a meticulous search of the Dome Building, but found nothing amiss. They returned to their homes on the presumption that Francke was at a private dinner engagement. Police were never notified of the situation until the guard discovered the body nearly four hours later.
Given the nature of Francke's work, the possibility that the murder was a "hit" was immediately considered. An investigation commenced, and fifteen months later, Frank Gable, a small-time methamphetamine dealer, was charged with the crime. A local teen runaway named Jodie Swearingen testified before a grand jury that she had witnessed the murder; police reports indicate that she had identified Gable as the perpetrator. She later recanted her testimony, instead claiming that another Salem drug dealer, Timothy Natividad, was the murderer.