PENSACOLA, Fla. -- A jury of six men and six women unanimously recommended two death sentences for Paul Hill, the shotgun-wielding former minister who killed Dr. John B. Britton and his clinic escort James H. Barrett outside a Pensacola abortion clinic June 29.
Jurors deliberated for four hours and one minute before voting for the death penalty twice, 12-0. It will be up to a judge to decide whether to accept their recommendation to send Hill to Florida's electric chair or sentence him to life in prison.
Hill sat expressionless as the recommendations were read by the court clerk. His mother fought sobs. Bruce Barrett, son of one of the slain men, wiped away tears.
Throughout his four-day trial, Hill said little, refusing to make an opening or closing statement or to cross- examine witnesses. He acted as his own attorney.
"It's my desire to participate as little as possible in these proceedings," Hill said in court yesterday morning. "I don't want to be culpable in them."
But just before the jury retired to consider its recommendation for punishment, Hill rose and went to the lectern to address the panel. He delivered a closing argument of his own devising. It lasted just 33 seconds and contained just 66 words:
"You have a responsibility to protect your neighbors' lives and to use force if necessary to do so.
"In an effort to suppress this truth, you may mix my blood with the blood of the unborn and those who have fought to defend the oppressed. However, truth and righteousness will prevail.
"May God help you to protect the unborn, as you would want to be protected."
Escambia County Circuit Judge Frank Bell allowed Hill to make his statement over the objections of prosecutor Jim Murray.
Hill was found guilty of murder Wednesday after the jury deliberated 20 minutes. He was found guilty Oct. 3 on four counts of breaking a new federal law protecting abortion clinics against trespass.
In the four hours of deliberation, the jury sent out just one &L; question to the judge: The panel wanted to know if "life in prison without parole" excluded all possibility of parole, or "does the law allow in future years the defendant can be paroled?"
Judge Bell called the jury back in but told its members only to study carefully his earlier instructions. They retired again. Ten minutes later they were back with the two recommendations of death.
Hill also was found guilty of wounding clinic escort June Barrett, James Barrett's wife, and of firing into an occupied vehicle. The former charge carries a possible sentence of life imprisonment. The latter carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison.
Florida law obliges Judge Bell to attach "great weight" to the jury's recommendation. He is known in the circuit as a severe judge who does not shrink from imposing the death sentence. In a recent case, he overrode a jury's recommendation of life imprisonment for one of two defendants and sentenced both to death.
Mr. Murray hailed the verdict as the clear expression from the Pensacola community that acts of violence such as Hill's will be punished.
"The message that is being sent -- and I hope it is the message that is being conveyed -- is that violence will not be tolerated in Pensacola, Florida," the prosecutor said in a news conference yesterday. "I can assure you and the community that the state's attorney's office . . . is going to bring the full force of law to bear on anyone who commits an act of violence in this community.
"The message is clear. The community does not like it. The community is not going to put up with it."
Bruce Barrett said the recommendation "doesn't help me get over our grief one iota. I wish my father were still alive." Later, he added: "I don't care if Paul Hill goes to the electric chair in the state of Florida."
His sister Dandy said she was "pleased" by the recommendation.
"I'm pleased that they sent the message to the community that violence will not be condoned, by recommending the maximum penalty that the law allows," she said.
Hill's supporters mourned the death sentence recommendations and predicted darkly that other acts of violence might follow.
"I'm sure the judge always had in mind to give the death penalty and so did the prosecuting attorney," said the Rev. David Trosch of Mobile, Ala., a suspended Catholic priest who is a friend of Hill's and an ardent opponent of abortion. "He believes falsely that he's preventing insurrection in this nation on the question of abortion. Instead, he is promoting it."
Vincent Heuser, a Virginia attorney who tried unsuccessfully to represent Hill at his trial, said that "the injustice of his execution is analogous to the execution of unborn babies. A lot of things were done here very summarily."
"I think the judge wanted the death penalty in this case and the trial was just an inconvenience to get through," Mr. Heuser said.
In closing remarks, the prosecutor asked jurors to return recommendations of death in the shootings of Dr. Britton, 69, and Mr. Barrett, 74.
"He killed people because of an opposition to an idea," Mr. Murray said. "Mercy is stretched to the breaking point when it is given to anyone who has not the capacity to be merciful.
"You give him the same level of mercy and compassion that he gave Dr. Britton and Colonel Barrett."