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Wednesday, 01 February 2012 09:15 |
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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) _ A defense witness for a man accused of killing a South Dakota prison guard during a failed escape attempt says the defendant was devastated by his brother's execution in Oklahoma in 2000.
Forty-nine-year-old Rodney Berget has pleaded guilty to killing Ronald Johnson on April 12 _ Johnson's 63rd birthday _ during a failed prison escape with fellow inmate Eric Robert at the South Dakota State Penitentiary. A judge is weighing whether Berget should be sentenced to death for the crime. Mary Baker, a paralegal for the Minnehaha County Public Defender's Office, testified that that the execution of Berget's brother, Roger, was a sad point in Rodney Berget's life. Thirty-nine-year-old Roger Berget was sentenced to die by lethal injection after pleading guilty to killing an Oklahoma man. (Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) |
