Louisiana Jurors Decide Killer of Two Should Die
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BATON ROUGE, La. — A jury took little more than 90 minutes Thursday night to decide on the death penalty for twice-convicted killer Derrick Todd Lee, apparently rejecting claims by defense attorneys that their client was mentally retarded.
Jurors earlier in the day heard conflicting testimony from defense and prosecution witnesses on Lee’s mental condition. A 2002 Supreme Court decision forbids the execution of the mentally retarded.
Lee, 35, has been linked by DNA evidence to the deaths of seven women from 1998 to 2003. The same jury that convicted him Tuesday of first-degree murder in the death of 22-year-old Charlotte Murray Pace of Baton Rouge decided Thursday night that he should die.
Lee already faces a life sentence for his conviction in August in the slaying of another woman in West Baton Rouge Parish.
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