Do you guys think he should recieve the death penalty or have a life sentence for his crimes?
SARASOTA, Fla. - A weeping Joseph Smith apologized Tuesday for the abduction, rape and murder of 11-year-old Carlie Brucia two years ago, telling a judge he had taken large amounts of cocaine and heroin that day in hopes of killing himself.
Smith told Circuit Judge Andrew Owens, who will sentence him to death or life in prison, "I do not ask for mercy for myself. The only thing I can see to give me a life sentence is for my family. I do not want to see them hurt any further."
Carlie was abducted while walking home from a friend's house in February 2004, an attack that was caught on a car wash surveillance tape and broadcast nationwide.
Friends and even Smith's brother said they recognized the burly mechanic grabbing the young girl's wrist on the tape as Smith. A jury found the 39-year-old guilty last November and recommended by a 10-2 vote that he be executed.
Owens will ultimately sentence Smith on March 15. Under Florida law, he must give the jury's death sentence recommendation "great weight."
Smith told Owens during the second day of the sentencing hearing Tuesday that he had been a heroin addict since he was 19 and had unsuccessfully tried to quit several times. He said his wife had kicked him out of their home in January 2004, he had lost his job and, in the hours before abducting Carlie, he tried to overdose.
"I just wanted to die that day," he said. But, he said, "I take responsibility of my crimes."
Defense attorney Adam Tebrugge on Monday cited medical records as early as 1992 showing Smith had been involuntarily admitted to a hospital, and said Smith also had been arrested at least 13 times since 1993, mostly on drug offenses.
Smith's 15-year-old niece, identified only as KS because of her age, also testified about his character, saying Monday that she enjoyed seeing Smith at family holidays and barbecues and walking dogs together.
But Carlie's friends and family members talked of the desperation and grief the man had caused.
Carlie's mother, Susan Schorpen, could not appear because she is jailed on drug charges, but in a letter read by prosecutor Debra Riva, Schorpen said she had institutionalized herself three times, and was trying to self-medicate with drugs to numb the pain of losing her daughter.
Noel Gilliland, Carlie's former sixth-grade teacher, said two of the girl's friends failed the sixth grade after her slaying.
"Carlie's future and life have been stolen from her and from her family," her aunt Lori Brucia said on behalf of the girl's grandmother, Andrea Brucia. "We will never know her as a teenager.
"Our family is forever broken. Our nightmares about what you've done to her "? our hearts will never heal."
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