Kendrick penalty phase delayed by positive COVID-19 tests
SOMERSET, Pa. – A penalty phase proceeding has been rescheduled in the trial of a former SCI- Somerset inmate convicted of fatally beating a corrections sergeant in 2018.
One 'crucial' participant in the trial has contracted COVID-19 and another participant's spouse has also tested positive, prompting court officials to delay the proceeding by one week, Somerset County Court Administrator Tammy Escalera said.
The capital sentencing phase for Paul Jawon Kendrick, which is now set to begin next Monday, is anticipated to take several days to complete, attorneys have said.
Jurors were notified through the county's automated alert system about the change, Escalera said.
The county switched to a new system earlier this year that enables group notification by email and text messages.
Kendrick is the first person in Somerset County in decades facing the possibility of a death sentence.
He was convicted of first-degree murder and four assault-related charges Friday following four days of trial.
Jurors issued a verdict after nearly three hours of deliberation, convicting him for intentionally killing Sgt. Mark J. Baserman, who was 60.
A jury of nine women and three men who sat for last week's trial will return next week to consider whether Kendrick should face the death penalty or life in prison without parole as punishment for the crime.
Attorneys in the case and Senior Judge Patrick Kiniry spent five days selecting a panel of jurors willing to listen to both sides' arguments.
By law, 'aggravating' circumstances – including the fact that Kendrick was convicted of killing another person in 2014 – and 'mitigating' circumstances that might lessen culpability for the crime must be weighed by jurors before rendering a decision.
The fact Kendrick has also now been convicted of killing a law enforcement official is another aggravating factor jurors will be able to consider.
Under Pennsylvania law, all 12 jurors would have to decide in favor of the death penalty for the verdict to be issued.
Death row listJust one person is on death row for a crime committed in Somerset or Cambria counties.
Stephen Rex Edmiston was sentenced in 1989 for the rape and murder of a 2-year-old child.
Edmiston, now in his mid-60s, was sentenced to death after jurors found that Edmiston took the toddler from Clearfield County and left her body in Reade Township.
The last person to be executed in Pennsylvania was Gary Heidnik, remembered as the 'House of Horrors' killer who raped and murdered women in his Philadelphia basement in the 1980s. He was executed in 1999.
Over the past decade, Pennsylvania has had a moratorium on executions, but 95 people are currently on death row, according to a state execution list.
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