Jurors sentenced Ronald Lee Haskell after deliberating for little more than four hours. The jury had to choose between life in prison without parole or a death sentence.
Ronald Lee Haskell, left, and Douglas Durham, defence lawyer, sit in court as they wait for the sentencing verdict in Houston. Picture: Melissa PhillipCassidy Stay, left, reacts with family members after the sentence of death for Ronald Lee Haskell in Houston. Haskell was convicted of capital murder in the 2014 massacre that killed six of her family members.
Ronald Lee Haskell sits with his head down as a photo of the Stay family is shown during the sentencing phase. Picture: Melissa PhillipWilliford described how Haskell shot 4-year-old Zach in the shoulder — an injury he could have survived — and said the frightened child scurried in the chaos to his father on a couch, burying his head in his father’s shoulder for protection. But by that point, Zach’s father was already dead, Williford said.
Durham said Haskell’s long history of mental illness, in which he was treated by multiple doctors, should be considered by the jury as a mitigating factor in deciding that life in prison would be a more appropriate sentence.Durham urged jurors to consider “compassion and forgiveness” instead of “hate, anger” when making their decision.
To impose a death sentence, jurors had to find Haskell would be a future danger to society and that any mitigating factors — such as mental illness — were insufficient to merit a lesser sentence.
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