Elizabeth Smart Trial Update: Jury Enters Second Day of Deliberations
SALT LAKE CITY (CBS/AP) Elizabeth Smart and her family have waited over eight years to see Brian David Mitchell, the man accused of kidnapping her at knifepoint from her home, brought to justice - and it looks like they will have to wait a little longer as the jury enters its second day of deliberations.
The facts of the case are undisputed - even Mitchell's attorneys say there's no question he kidnapped Smart and raped her almost daily until she was found nine months later, walking a suburban street with Mitchell and his now-estranged wife.
At issue is whether Mitchell can be held legally responsible for his crimes. Defense attorneys argue that Mitchell suffers from a delusional disorder that prevents him from realizing right from wrong. But prosecutors have painted an altogether different picture of an anti-social psychopath who used the illusion of mental illness and religious fervor to get people to do what he wanted and to manipulate others' perception of him.
Mitchell is charged with interstate kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor to engage in sexual activity.
"He's a predatory chameleon with the cunning to adapt his behavior to serve his needs and desires at any given moment," Assistant U.S. Attorney Diana Hagen said during an 80-minute closing argument.
"He stripped her of her clothes, her identity and her innocence," Hagen said.
But defense attorney Robert Steele says Mitchell's actions were colored by long-standing delusional beliefs. He told jurors Thursday that they should find Mitchell not guilty by reason of insanity and send him to a prison mental hospital.
"It's easy to say that he's just making it up," Steele said during his hour-long closing argument. "But this is sustained, a long-term drive. He thinks he is special. This is not an overnight thing."
During the trial, Mitchell was removed daily from the courtroom for singing hymns and disrupting proceedings. Last week, he had a "seizure" in the holding room where he watches the trial on television. He spent several hours at a hospital before being returned to a jail.
Arguably the most compelling testimony in the trial came from Smart herself as she described in detail the night she was abducted and the nine months of "terror" that she endured at the hands of Mitchell and his now-estranged wife Wanda Barzee.
"It was just indescribable fear," Smart testified of the feeling she felt when she realized she wasn't dreaming. "I remember him saying that I have a knife to your neck, don't make a sound, get out of bed and come with me or I will kill you and your family," she said, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
Smart described the camp in the mountains above her home that Mitchell had prepared, using a cable to tether her, and recounted how he raped her after pronouncing her a plural wife.
She testified that Mitchell threatened the lives of her family if she tried to escape, but it was when he forced her to burn the pajamas she had worn the night he took her and to sever all ties to her former life and family that Smart says she resolved to survive the nightmare "no matter what," according to the paper.
"No matter what it took, I would live," Smart testified. "I would survive and do everything he told me to do to keep my life and my family's life intact."
COMPLETE COVERAGE OF ELIZABETH SMART ON CRIMESIDER
