STRANGERS MUST STATE their destination to the armed security guard in the lobby. Four floors up, a second, friendlier interrogation is conducted by the secretary with the intercom, on the safe side of a bullet-proof window. Gaining entry to the Salt Lake County District Attorney's office used to be more straightforward. After an inmate shot an attorney to death during a court hearing, strict security measures were implemented throughout the judicial system.

"Unhappy customer threats are part of business," says prosecutor Howard Lemcke '72. "Strong feelings come into play with people who can't live by the rules the rest of us have agreed to live by."

Lemcke, a prolific coffee drinker whose favorite cup bears the skull-and-bones insignia of the Salt Lake City homicide squad and the slogan, "Our day begins when yours ends" - has only been assaulted once. The defendant in a routine traffic violation case disagreed with the verdict and vented his disappointment on Lemcke. He threw a roundhouse punch at his head, but Lemcke ducked in the nick of time and the punch landed on the back of his right ear. "I'm a Chicago boy," he says. Unharmed, he presented the only barrier that stood between the nearest cop (a former BYU football player) and the raging bull of a defendant. As the cop leapt over Lemcke for the tackle, he stomped on his chest with his Size 15 boot. Lemcke is fleshy and big-boned, and the boot print merely knocked the wind out of him.

Lemcke describes the experience as if it were just another comedy routine in an ordinary work week. In his 25 years with the district attorney's office, he has prosecuted more than 60 homicide suspects. One in particular, David Mead, turned out to be such a cold-blooded killer that he nearly convinced the detective and coroner of his innocence. It took two trials and nearly five years to convict him.

Mead had planned the murder for months. And he had delivered the blow to his wife's head in exactly the right location for it to appear accidental, corroborating his story as the distraught husband who found her, and the findings of the initial investigation, that she had fallen into the couple's backyard fish pond and drowned while he was working late. more