Serial Killer Convicted - Update

From the Star Telegram:

Girl's killer sentenced to death

FORT WORTH -- By the look on jurors' faces, it wasn't an easy decision.

After six hours of deliberations, the panel of seven men and five women took their seats in the jury box Wednesday evening and handed their verdict to state District Judge Elizabeth Berry.

One held his head in his hands. Two wiped tears from their eyes.

Their unanimous decision: Convicted killer Juan Meza Segundo should be executed for raping and strangling 11-year-old Vanessa Villa more than 20 years ago inside her north Fort Worth home.

Segundo, 43, stood stoically next to his defense attorneys when Berry pronounced the sentence.

Good for this jury, they made a hard decision and did not fall for the defense attorney's appeal for leniency.

During their final summation, defense attorneys Mark Daniel and Wes Ball did not downplay Segundo's past but said he is a changed man who deserves a life sentence.

After Segundo was released from prison in 2000 after serving a sentence for driving while intoxicated, he moved to Keene and became an active member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He married, developed a strong relationship with his son and became an adoring grandfather.

He has been a model citizen for five years, they said.

Who cares about his "changed life"? He is an animal and should be put down like a bad dog. To many times we, as a society, make excuses for animals like this and offer them leniency. Too many times these goblins end up back on our streets, violent predators searching for their next victim.

The defence attorneys final appeal described the goblins upcoming death:

If they assessed the death penalty, Daniel said, one day Segundo would be put on a gurney, injected with a combination of three drugs -- the same chemicals used to euthanize a dog.

"His eyes will roll back in his head, he will swallow...and life will pass from his body," Daniel said.

To easy by far for this fiend. How easy were the deaths of his victims?

On a personal note, I feel that a long and drawn out appeals process is cruel and unusual punishment. This process needs to be sped up so the goblin only has to sit on death row for a number of months, not years.

Read the complete article here.