Dale Hausner
Dale Hausner was no ordinary killer, prosecutor Vince Imbordino told a jury today in a downtown Phoenix courtroom. The 36-year-old former airport janitor relished his attacks. He kept tallies of them. He collected souvenirs.
“Clearly, the evidence in this case supports the conclusion that this defendant and the crimes he committed make him different, set him apart from other killers and make him eligible for the death penalty,” Imbordino said during the first day of the sentencing phase in Hausner’s marathon murder trial.
A jury convicted Hausner of six murders and 74 other crimes earlier this month, sending him into the next stage of the trial. The same 12 people who handed down the verdict are now being asked to decide whether he is eligible for the death penalty. If they decide he is, they will then have to chance to choose whether he deserves it.
Imbordino told the jury Hausner, nicknamed the Serial Shooter, fits all the requirements to be a candidate for death. “This defendant went about in a calculated manner to kill people,” the prosecutor said. “He looked for his targets. He selected his targets at random. And those poor people were killed. He had no reason to do that.”
Though the first phase of the trial lasted more than five months, testimony and arguments in the second phase lasted just one day, with only a single witness testifying during the entire proceeding.
That witness, Philip Keen, was the former chief medical examiner of Maricopa County. He testified murder victims Claudia Gutierrez-Cruz and Robin Blasnek likely suffered terribly between the times they were shot and when they died. “The shotgun wound pain does not go away quickly,” Keen said.
However, the doctor also added that the two women, killed in separate attacks, likely suffered no more than other victims killed in similar situations. “In the spectrum of all shotgun wounds that wind up fatal, these are in the same range,” Keen said.
Hausner’s defense team pounced on the testimony, using it to dispute the idea that he was some sort of super killer. Attorney Tim Agan told jurors that to find his client eligible for the death penalty, they had to determine that there was something special or heinous about the murders. The fact that he murdered six people doesn’t do that, he said. “Multiple murders does not the aggravator of cruel, heinous or depraved make,” Again said.
Nor, the attorney said, does the fact that his victims suffered pain. “You’re being asked to consider whether somehow the pain and cruelty that was inflicted on this victim goes well beyond what some other person would feel in this circumstance,” Again told the jury.
Both Imbordino and Agan objected multiple times during the other’s presentation. Their arguments essentially came down to slight interpretations of Arizona’s death penalty process, in which the jury plays an integral part. Each tried to sway the jury on his own viewpoint.
By 4 p.m., however, both sides were done arguing the point. The jury was sent off to deliberate on whether Hausner should face the death penalty for his crimes. They could announce their decision as early as tomorrow. If jurors side with the prosecution, the trial will move on to its next phase and jurors will be asked to decide whether Hausner should live or die.