A life of crime, blamed on severe childhood traumas that developed into kidnapping and the murder of a prison guard, has now ended with a sentence of death by lethal injection, as reported by the Yahoo News.
R.B., 49, an inmate in a South Dakota prison, has been given the death sentence for his hand in murdering a prison guard. He, along with fellow inmate, E.R., 49, were found guilty of striking the guard with a pipe and then covering his mouth with plastic wrap while the two tried to break out of the prison.
Both inmates waived their rights to a jury trial, pleaded guilty to killing guard R.J., and have been sentenced to death.
R.B.’s attorney, Jeff Larson, argued that his client had endured a childhood that had been dominated by both alcoholism and violence. But Second Circuit Judge Bradley Zell didn’t accept the argument. He said that the weight of R.B.’s actions was far stronger that any mitigating circumstances that his lawyer presented.
Zell told R.B. just before handing down the death sentence, “Mr. (R.B.), may God have mercy on your soul.”
Only one of five aggravating factors had to exist for Zell to hand down the death penalty, and the death of a correctional officer was one of them. Other circumstances would have been the manner of death, where and why it occurred, and the defendants' criminal background.
This was not R.B.’s first failed attempt to escape prison. Prosecutors claims it was one of several times, this one, April 12, being his last.
Serving life sentences, R.B. had been placed in prison for attempted murder and kidnapping.
His time in jail began while still a teenager, with his first stint in the South Dakota State Penitentiary. Zell said that since that time R.B.’s crimes had grown more and more violent in nature.
Marty Jackley, the South Dakota Attorney General, said that since “(R.B.) has led a life of pain and destruction” the death penalty was the only viable option and would serve as a warning to other inmates considering escape.
Larson had said that R.B. “is not a monster.” In his opening statements he described his client’s early life as one fraught with peril. He had been removed from his mother’s care early on and left to be raised by an alcoholic father. Allegedly his father often beat him.
Zell did acknowledge that R.B. “truly did experience a crummy childhood” but that did not in any way excuse his “extremely violent acts.”
Zell added, “There are many people in this society that have had bad things happen to them but yet have not chosen to live a life of crime or to commit acts of violence on others.”
After the two men murdered R.J., they donned his guard uniform and moved toward the prison gate, with R.J.’s body between them in a large box. They never left the grounds as they were quickly apprehended.
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