Jury in Robinson case ends day without reaching verdict

OLATHE, Kan. -- Jurors considering a punishment for John E. Robinson Sr., who faces the death penalty for murdering two women and prison for the slaying of a third whose body was never found, finished their first day of deliberations late Friday without reaching a verdict.

The jury was sequestered for the night and was to return to the Johnson County Courthouse at 9 a.m. today to resume its work.

After putting on three witnesses a day earlier, Robinson's attorneys rested their defense in the penalty phase of the trial Friday afternoon by asking jurors to grant him mercy.

Defense attorney Patrick Berrigan said many unanswered questions remained in the case, which raised concerns that others may be involved with the murders.

After convicting him on two counts of capital murder on Tuesday, jurors were instructed to decide if Robinson should die by lethal injection or be sentenced to a life term for a minimum of 25 to 50 years. In the third death, Robinson was convicted of first-degree murder, which does not qualify for a death sentence in Kansas.

Berrigan reminded jurors that executing Robinson would deny his family contact with a devoted father and grandfather.

"We give mercy to people who don't deserve it. We choose to grant mercy," Berrigan said. "We don't have to kill this man."

Robinson is also charged with killing three females in Missouri.

Johnson County District Attorney Paul Morrison argued that Robinson, by virtue of killing six females, denied the victims the "tender mercies" of life that Robinson asks jurors not to take from him.

Morrison noted that the only time Robinson showed any emotion was when his wife testified about his relationship with their granddaughter.

"He cried for himself. That says it all," Morrison said. "He doesn't care about anybody but himself."

Morrison also said Kansas reserved the death penalty for the worst of crimes -- and Robinson's crimes qualified.

"If not him, who?" Morrison said.

Robinson, 58, was convicted of two counts of capital murder in the deaths of Suzette Trouten, 27, of Newport, Mich., and Izabela Lewicka, 21, a former Purdue University student from West Lafayette, Ind.

Their bodies were discovered on June 3, 2000, inside 85-gallon barrels on Robinson's rural property in Linn County, Kan.

He also was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1985 death of Lisa Stasi, 19, whose body has never been found. Kansas did not have a death penalty at that time, which meant Robinson could not be charged with capital murder in her death.

Morrison did not present a case during the penalty phase, instead choosing to focus on questioning defense witnesses.

One of the three defense witnesses was Mark Cunningham, who has testified as a forensic psychologist in more than 70 death penalty cases nationwide. He said Robinson's previous good conduct while serving prison sentences in Kansas and Missouri was further evidence he was a low risk to be violent in prison.

Robinson spent five years in Kansas and Missouri prisons from 1987 to 1992.

Cunningham also cited Robinson's age as reason to believe he would beehive in prison.

"The older a person is, the less likely he has problems," Cunningham said.

However, Cunningham said Robinson had practiced deception and manipulation both inside and outside prison walls, including falsifying letters of recommendations to his parole board. Based on that fact and examples of fraud brought out in the murder trial, Cunningham said, there was no reason to believe he would not try to manipulate his situation again.

Robinson still faces trial in Missouri on charges of killing two women and a girl whose bodies were found in barrels in a storage locker in the Kansas City suburb of Raymore, Mo.

Though not charged in Kansas for the crimes, prosecutors effectively linked those three deaths to the Kansas bodies. Such a link was needed to support the prosecution claim the murders were part of a common scheme executed by Robinson over two decades, and thus qualified for capital punishment under Kansas law.

Capital murder trials in Kansas are divided into two phases. After a conviction, prosecutors present evidence why the aggravating circumstances of the crime merits death, while defense attorneys argue that mitigating circumstances justify a sentence of life in prison without parole for 50 years.