Elizabeth Smart Verdict Reached: Jury Deliberated Less Than 12 Hours
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 after less than 12 hours of deliberations a federal jury has a reached a verdict in the kidnapping trial.
The jury started deliberating just after 5:30 p.m. Thursday and deliberated for a little over three hours before adjourning for the night. Court officials announced jurors had reached a verdict just after 10:30 a.m. Friday. The verdict will be read shortly in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City.
The facts of the case were 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 was whether Mitchell could 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.
Prosecutors 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.
In their closing argument the prosecution called Mitchell a "predatory chameleon" who manipulated everyone around him and "[adapted] his behavior to serve his needs and desires at any given moment," Assistant U.S. Attorney Diana Hagen said.
Of his actions against Smart Hagen said succinctly, "he stripped her of her clothes, her identity and her innocence," when he deliberately took Smart from her home in 2002, forced Smart into a polygamous marriage, raped her daily and held her captive for nine months, hiding her behind long robes, a head scarf and veil, and a religious name.
But defense attorney Robert Steele says Mitchell's actions were colored by long-standing delusional beliefs.
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
