Elizabeth smart trial verdict
Thursday and deliberated for a little over three hours before adjourning for the night. Court officials announced jurors had reached their verdict just after a. The facts of the case were undisputed - even Mitchell's attorneys say there's no question he kidnapped Smart and raped her almost daily until she was found nine months later, walking a suburban street with Mitchell and his now-estranged wife.
District Dale Kimball instructed jurors that in order to acquit Mitchell under the insanity defense, they must determine he was mentally ill and that his illness was so severe it kept him from knowing right from wrong. Defense attorneys mounted the insanity defense for Mitchell, trying to convince jurors that Mitchell was so delusional he could not understand his actions were wrong when he abducted Smart.
Several mental health experts testified for the defense, offering diagnoses that ranged from delusional to psychotic to paranoid schizophrenic. Prosecutors produced their own mental health experts, who testified that Mitchell was little more than a narcissistic pedophile who used religious dogma and claims he received revelations from God to get what he wanted. Smart spent nine months with Mitchell and his legal wife, Wanda Barzee, at makeshift camps in the Utah mountains and at a homeless camp outside San Diego, California.
Now 23, Smart was the star witness for the prosecution. She said Mitchell raped her nearly every day of her captivity, some days more than once. Such a verdict would have sent him to a prison mental hospital. Smart testified she believed Mitchell was driven by his desire for sex, drugs and alcohol, not by any sincere religious beliefs. Jurors did not buy the insanity defense, deliberating for roughly five hours to find him guilty of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor across state lines for the purposes of sex.
As the verdicts were read, the shackled Mitchell sat singing about Jesus Christ on the cross. Smart then turned to her mother and both smiled. Elizabeth Smart later hugged prosecutors. Mitchell could face up to life in prison when he is sentenced on May Defense experts told the jury he was delusional and psychotic. One expert diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic. I have to convince you as a result he was not able to understand what he was doing, or what was wrong.
Prosecutors portrayed Mitchell as a pedophile, narcissist and skillful manipulator who used fundamentalist religious dogma when it benefited him. Their experts said Mitchell could turn his religious beliefs on and off at will and talk his way out of trouble. Religious writings that might have seemed psychotic, including his manifesto, were actually cobbled together from other sources, one expert testified.
Attorney Diana Hagen said during her closing argument. The facts you have heard during this trial explain it all. After the verdict was announced, Mitchell's step-daughter Rebecca Woodridge said she was dismayed by the verdict and concerned that Mitchell will be hurt in prison. As winter approached in late , the trio journeyed from Utah to a homeless camp outside San Diego, California, where they spent several months.
Mitchell was arrested after he tossed a brick through a church window and spent a week in jail. Back at the camp, Smart and Barzee grew so weak from hunger that they could barely stand up, Smart testified. Mitchell gave a false name when he was arrested, and authorities released him without discovering his true identity. The testimony revealed several encounters that could have exposed Smart's identity and perhaps brought her home months earlier had more questions been asked.
Their robes and odd ways drew the attention of a police officer in the Salt Lake City Library, as well as others during their travels. An officer testified that he asked to lift the young woman's veil, but the man refused, citing religious reasons. He did not press them further. A woman who encountered them in California called the FBI, but the call wasn't followed up on, according to testimony.
0コメント