Lawyers: Georgia prisoner killed guards but is mentally ill
EATONTON, Ga. (AP) — Attorneys for a Ga prisoner on trial for murdering two jail guards acknowledge that Ricky Dubose killed the pair aboard a jail bus but say an abuse-stuffed childhood still left him mentally unwell.
“Ricky Dubose is guilty and intellectually disabled,” defense legal professional Gabrielle Amber Pittman reported in an opening assertion. “Ricky Dubose is responsible and mentally sick. We are inquiring you to come across Ricky guilty and intellectually disabled.”
The trial of Dubose commenced Wednesday in Eatonton, news outlets report. He could be executed if convicted in the fatal taking pictures of Sgt. Christopher Monica and Sgt. Curtis Billue while escaping from a jail transfer bus southeast of Atlanta in June 2017.
Dubose and Donnie Rowe escaped jointly and were arrested in Tennessee times afterwards. Rowe was convicted very last yr of murder in the guards’ death. He was sentenced to lifetime in prison with no parole by a judge right after jurors could not accomplish the unanimity essential to recommend a loss of life sentence in Ga.
Dubose is accused of firing the gun that killed the officers soon after he and Rowe slipped out of handcuffs and burst via an unlocked gate. Prosecutors say Dubose grabbed a person of the officers’ pistols and shot Monica, the guard, and then Billue, the driver, each in the head. Protection cameras on the bus recorded the violent escape and about 30 other prisoners witnessed the killings.
Prosecutors disagree with the protection on Dubose’s mental capacity, and the lawyers have argued about psychologist experiences anticipated to be introduced throughout trial. Jurors had been picked in coastal Brunswick over a period of time of additional than 3 months and bused to Eatonton since of comprehensive pretrial publicity. The trial could past months.
District Attorney T. Wright Barksdale III explained Dubose as “a predator” and “an clever, calculated criminal,” whose steps had been swift and decisive.
“Retrieves a Glock 9, masses it, shoots Christopher Monica, shoots Curtis Billue, kicks a window out of the bus, all of that ladies and gentlemen can take a mere 40 seconds,” Barksdale reported.
If jurors discover Dubose “guilty but with intellectual disability” or “guilty but mentally sick,“ Dubose would not be topic to the dying penalty.
“No make any difference what the condition could allege,” Pittman instructed the jury, “Ricky Dubose was not a prison genius who was preparing and plotting an escape in the weeks major up to the crime.”
Officers say Dubose and Rowe stole at least a few different autos though on the run, broke into a home, tied up the couple who lived there and hid out. Barksdale stated Dubose questioned the lady detained in the Tennessee home for make-up to disguise facial tattoos that consist of devil-like horns.
Pittman mentioned Dubose followed Rowe “into creating significant, terrible selections with tragic consequences.“
Dubose, 29, was serving a 20-calendar year sentence for a 2015 armed robbery and assault in Elbert County when he escaped. He had been in prison before, as properly.
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