It took a 4th District Court jury just over six hours of deliberations Wednesday to decide that Michael Anthony Archuleta should die for his part in the torture slaying of Gordon Ray Church.
The defendant, 27, showed no emotion when the jury's decision was read, but as he was taken from the courtroom he glared at prosecutor Carvel Harward, telling him, "I'll see you in hell."Archuleta's sister and parents, who testified earlier Wednesday that the defendant had been neglected and physically abused before they adopted him when he was 5, wept and embraced. Members of the victim's family were not present when jurors reached their decision at 9:10 p.m.
"Justice was done. It's not a happy occasion for anyone," said Millard County Attorney Warren Peterson. "But the jury did a tough job. They followed the evidence. They did what the statute called for, and that's their verdict. It was a proper verdict under the evidence."
The jury, which last week found Archuleta guilty of capital homicide, had the option of sentencing him to death or life in prison. Several jurors sobbed when 4th District Judge George E. Ballif polled them on their decision, which will automatically be appealed to the Utah State Supreme Court.
Next week, Ballif said, the court will issue a death warrant with an execution date. The judge chose lethal injection as the means of execution after Archuleta was unable to decide between injection and the firing squad.
Defense attorney Michael Esplin expressed disappointment with the jury's decision but said he was not surprised.
"I thought there was some evidence that the jury could have gone the other way with, but that's the verdict," he said. "The amount of time they were out would indicate that they didn't arrive at it (the decision) easily, but considered it carefully."
Regarding the defendant's statement to Harward, Esplin said, "I'm sure he's (Archuleta) probably not feeling his best right now."
Archuleta, who took the stand again Wednesday before the jury began penalty-phase deliberations, said he wanted to live a normal life.
"I feel I should be punished. I don't want to die," he said. "I didn't kill Gordon, (but) I was there."
As he did under oath last week, Archuleta placed blame for the murder on co-defendant Lance Conway Wood, 21, who will be tried Feb. 20.
Wood led investigators to the murder scene Nov. 23, 1988 _ a day after the slaying. Church's half-nude, badly beaten body was found covered with dirt and tree limbs in an area north of Cove Fort known as Dog Valley, Millard County.
Archuleta's remarks conflicted, however, with testimony Wednesday from a prison inmate who shared a cell with Archuleta shortly after the murder.
"He said that him and Lance Wood killed Gordon Church," said the inmate, whose identity the court asked the media to keep anonymous. "He told me that it was the ultimate rush. He said the evil had completely taken over him, and once they started he couldn't stop."
The inmate quoted Archuleta as saying that drugs couldn't compare to the "high" of killing Church, 28. "He told me they beat him to death" after trying to shock him with car battery jumper cables.
Archuleta wept when his mother, Stella Archuleta, took the stand and recounted noticing signs of abuse when she and her husband, Amos, adopted the defendant in 1968. Archuleta's parents testified that he had burn scars on his arms and buttocks.
"He was afraid of hot water," Stella Archuleta said. "He was afraid of (closed) doors."
She said the defendant was a hyperactive child, that he was suspended from several public schools and received treatment at both Timpanogos Community Mental Health Center and the Utah State Hospital.
Archuleta was in prison by the time he was 18 on a conviction of theft of a firearm, said June Hinckley, state prison records officer. He was paroled a year later in 1982. He was imprisoned again in 1987 for distribution of a controlled substance and was paroled Oct. 11, 1988 - about a month before the murder.
Psychologist Robert J. Howell testified that the defendant suffers from "attention-deficit hyperactivity syndrome" and that he has hallucinations. However, he said, Archuleta knows right from wrong, though his ability to make correct decisions is somewhat impaired.
"I love him. I couldn't love him any more even if I had given birth to him," Stella Archuleta said. "He's my son."