A prisoner who murdered his cellmate because he was a child molester is "a stone-cold killer" who deserves the death penalty, a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.
In closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill McKinnon described Brian Richardson as a violent predator who appointed himself judge and jury to carry out Steven Obara's execution at the U.S. Penitentiary in July 2007. "The only way to deter him from committing other crimes is to sentence him to death," McKinnon said.
Federal defender Brian Mendelsohn pleaded for mercy. He said Richardson was abused by a mother who left him covered with bruises and welts and is a mentally ill man now responding to proper medication.
"He was sorely damaged by the abuse he suffered as a child, the turning points in his life and a history none of us would want for our children," Mendelsohn said. "How we treat the mentally ill speaks volumes about our humanity. Brian is certainly among the most damaged and mentally ill."
In an unusual capital trial in federal court, the jury convicted Richardson last month of Obara's murder. Richardson, whose shaved head is covered with tattoos, stabbed Obara nine times with a shank fashioned from the pin of a fire extinguisher before strangling him. He then shaved and called for guards to take Obara's body away.
The jury adjourned Tuesday without reaching a verdict. The last federal death sentence was handed down in June by a Connecticut jury against a gang leader who killed rival drug dealers. Since 1997, federal juries in Atlanta have imposed two death sentences -- one against an inmate who killed a prison guard, the other against a man who raped and killed a nurse practitioner.
Because Richardson is already serving the equivalent of a life sentence, a sentence of life in prison without the chance of being released "is simply no punishment," McKinnon told jurors.
In past years Richardson had splashed bleach on a prison guard's face, stabbed one inmate 30 times and stabbed another cellmate in the back of the neck, McKinnon said. After Richardson killed Obara, he talked a troubled inmate across the hallway into committing suicide by hanging himself with a bed sheet, the prosecutor said.
"Has this defendant done anything in his entire life to deserve mercy from any of you?" McKinnon asked. "He certainly didn't show Steven Obara any mercy when he decided to execute him."
But Mendolsohn called allegations that Richardson is an evil predator "distorted reality" based on grandiose statements from the defendant himself and inmate snitches who told lies to get their own sentences reduced.
"Brian Richardson is not a stone-cold predatory killer," Mendelsohn said. "There is a huge chance for rehabilitation for Brian Richardson. He is finally on medicine that makes him calm."
Richardson's case has had its share of controversy. Its first two prosecutors were removed and are now being investigated by the Justice Department. This includes one prosecutor who jokingly suggested to an inmate that he would be rewarded if he were to stab one of Richardson's lawyers. This month, Senior U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper forbade the government from calling its own expert witnesses who conducted a mental health evaluation on Richardson after finding prosecutors misled him as to how the evaluation was to be conducted.
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