Page 2 of 9 FirstFirst 1234 ... LastLast
Results 11 to 20 of 89

Thread: Rodney Scott Berget - South Dakota Execution - October 29, 2018

  1. #11
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Minnehaha County Judge Bradley Zell has sentenced Rodney Berget to death for the April 12 slaying of 63-year-old Corrections Officer Ronald Johnson.

  2. #12
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Violent Past Leads To Death Sentence For Berget

    Five South Dakota inmates are sitting on death row.

    A judge sentenced 49-year-old Rodney Berget to die Monday morning for killing Correctional Officer Ron Johnson during a failed prison escape.

    Berget is the second inmate on death row for the crime. Fellow inmate Eric Robert is scheduled to be executed in May.

    Berget is currently serving two life sentences for attempted murder and kidnapping, and Judge Brad Zell believed a third life sentence would put other correctional officers at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in danger.

    "Given this history, if given the opportunity, Berget would most likely severely harm or kill other people, thus posing a future dangerousness to other correctional officers or others near him," Zell said in court.

    Berget's attorney, Jeff Larson, argued during the pre-sentencing hearing last week that the convict never really had a chance to lead a lawful life since he grew up with an abusive father and was in and out of prison since he was 15 years old.

    But Monday, Zell focused more on Berget's violent criminal history and eight escape attempts than he did the inmate's rough childhood.

    "There are many people in this society that have had bad things happen to them, but yet have not chosen to live a life of crime or commit acts of violence on others," Zell said.

    And while Berget's attorneys argued that the inmate is remorseful for his crimes, Zell said he never saw it.

    "Although there may have been some remorse exhibited by Berget through what he told his attorneys, or Ms. Baker, this court did not evidence during the entirety of the proceeding any kind of expression of remorse to the family, to RJ, from Berget," Zell said.

    And that is why a man who has admitted to murdering a state correctional officer is now staring down death himself.

    "Mr. Berget, may god have mercy on your soul," Zell said at the close of the hearing.

    Berget's execution will be set in six to eight months, but that could be delayed by the South Dakota Supreme Court's mandatory review of the case or any appeals Berget files.

    http://www.keloland.com/News/NewsDet....cfm?Id=127332

  3. #13
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    AG: Death Penalty Reserved For Cases Like Berget's

    Forty-nine-year-old Rodney Berget, who is already serving two life sentences, is now preparing for his execution.

    Berget’s death sentence for his role in the killing of South Dakota Correctional Officer Ron Johnson during an escape attempt came down just before 11 a.m. Monday.

    Berget's violent crimes, little remorse and eight attempted escapes from the walls of the South Dakota Penitentiary all played a role in his death sentence.

    "The death penalty is reserved for the most heinous offenses such as the conduct that Rodney Berget exerted in this case," Attorney General Marty Jackley said.

    Holding the hand of Johnson's widow and standing by the family he left behind, Jackley said after court that he hopes this sentence sends a message to other inmates.

    "The prison is a very dangerous place with dangerous people, and this type of conduct cannot be tolerated. I think it is a deterrent effect to have the death penalty available for those very outrageous, heinous cases, very limited, as in this instance," Jackley said.

    Berget is now the second inmate to be placed on death row for this crime in the last three months.

    South Dakota Secretary of Corrections Denny Kaemingk was at the hearing to show support for the family and says his staff will be ready for the execution.

    "The Department of Corrections will be prepared to carry out the sentence of the court," Kaemingk said.

    Though Berget asked for this sentence during his four-day hearing last week, Jackley says getting the death penalty was never Berget's goal last April.

    "I don't think this was him trying to end his life sentences via the death penalty. I think it was him trying to end his life sentences with an escape. That's what this case was about, was a selfish act of Rodney Berget to try to escape from the walls of the penitentiary," Jackley said.

    While Berget and Eric Robert, the two who tried to escape, have now both been sentenced to death, this case isn't closed just yet.

    A third inmate, Michael Nordman, who is charged with giving Berget and Robert the pipe and shrink wrap to commit the crime, will have a pre-trial hearing Thursday morning.

    Jackley says his goal is to have that case wrapped up before the one-year anniversary of Johnson's death in April.

    http://www.keloland.com/News/NewsDet....cfm?Id=127336

  4. #14
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    SD prison inmate to be executed in mid-September

    PIERRE, S.D. (AP) - A mid-September execution is set for the second of two inmates sentenced to die for the killing of a South Dakota prison guard during a failed escape attempt.

    Rodney Berget, 49, is to be executed by lethal injection the week of Sept. 9-15. Second Circuit Judge Bradley Zell ordered that the State Penitentiary warden set the exact date and time, Attorney General Marty Jackley said Friday.

    Berget and Eric Robert, 49, both waived their rights to jury trials and pleaded guilty to killing Ronald Johnson, 63, on April 12, 2011. Robert asked a judge to sentence him to death; Berget said he deserved to die.

    A third inmate, Michael Nordman, 47, was given a life sentence for providing the materials that Robert and Berget used to kill Johnson. Authorities say the two bashed Johnson with a pipe and covered his mouth with plastic wrap before Robert put on the guard's uniform and unsuccessfully tried to cart a large box with Berget inside through a prison gate. The penitentiary made more than a dozen procedural changes after the incident, including adding more officers and security cameras.

    Robert's execution was set for the week of May 13 but the state Supreme Court earlier this month delayed it. Death penalty cases in South Dakota include an automatic appeal to the high court, and justices said they wanted more time to review the case.

    Berget's case will get the same mandatory review, Jackley said.

    http://www.mitchellrepublic.com/even.../id/D9T3RO801/

  5. #15
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    2 brothers sentenced to death in separate states

    SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Rodney Berget lives in a single cell on South Dakota's death row, rarely leaving the tiny room where he awaits execution for bludgeoning a prison guard to death with a pipe during an attempted escape.

    For Berget's immediate family, his fate is somewhat familiar. He is the second member of the clan to be sentenced to death. His older brother was convicted in 1987 of killing a man for his car. Roger Berget spent 13 years on Oklahoma's death row until his execution in 2000 at age 39.

    The Bergets are not the first pair of siblings to be condemned. Record books reveal at least three cases of brothers who conspired to commit crimes and both got the death penalty. But these two stand out because their crimes were separated by more than 600 miles and 25 years.

    "To have it in different states in different crimes is some sort of commentary on the family there," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which tracks death penalty trends.

    The siblings' journey from the poverty of their South Dakota childhood to stormy, crime-ridden adult lives shows the far-reaching effects of a damaged upbringing — and the years of havoc wrought by two men who developed what the courts called a wanton disregard for human life.

    Rodney Berget is scheduled to die later this year, potentially ending the odyssey that began when the two boys were born into a family that already had four kids.

    A former prison principal described Rodney as a "throwaway kid" who never had a chance at a productive life. A lawyer for Roger recalled him as an "ugly duckling" with little family support.

    The boys were born after the family moved from their failed farm in rural South Dakota to Aberdeen, a city about 20 miles away. Roger arrived in 1960. Rodney came along two years later.

    His farming dreams dashed, patriarch Benford Berget went to work for the state highway department. Rosemary Berget took a night job as a bar manager at the local Holiday Inn.

    The loss of the farm and the new city life seemed to strain the family and the couple's marriage. When the family moved to town, "things kind of fell apart," Bonnie Engelhart, the eldest Berget sibling, testified in 1987.

    Benford Berget, away on business, was rarely around. When he was home, he drank and become physically abusive, lawyers for the brothers later said.

    By the 1970s, the couple divorced, and Roger and Rodney started getting into trouble. Roger skipped school. Rodney started stealing. Soon, they were taking cars. Both went to prison for the first time as teens.

    Roger Berget enjoyed a rare period of freedom in 1982 and met a woman while hitchhiking. The two started a relationship, and the woman gave birth to a child the next year. But Roger didn't get to see his son often because he was soon behind bars again, this time in Oklahoma. And for a far more sinister crime.

    Roger and a friend named Michael Smith had decided to steal a random car from outside an Oklahoma City grocery store. The two men spotted 33-year-old Rick Patterson leaving the store on an October night in 1985. After abducting him at gunpoint, they put Patterson in the trunk and concluded he would have to be killed to prevent him from identifying his captors.

    They drove the car to a deserted spot outside the city and shot Patterson in the back of the head and neck, blowing away the lower half of his face.

    A year later, Berget pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to death on March 12, 1987. An appeals court threw out a death sentence for Smith, who was later sentenced to life in prison without parole.

    Less than three months after Roger was sentenced to death, Rodney Berget, then 25 and serving time for grand theft and escape, joined five other inmates in breaking out of the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls.

    The men greased their bodies with lotion, slipped through a hole in an air vent and then cut through window bars in an auto body shop at the prison. Berget was a fugitive for more than a month.

    Thirteen years passed before Roger Berget was executed by lethal injection on June 8, 2000. His younger brother was still in prison in South Dakota.

    Then in 2002, the younger Berget was released. His sister and her husband threw Rodney his first-ever birthday party when he turned 40.

    But the good days were numbered because a year later, he was sentenced to life in prison for attempted murder and kidnapping. He headed back to the South Dakota State Penitentiary — this time for good.

    Then Rodney got to talking with a fellow inmate named Eric Robert about a goal they shared: to escape — or die trying.

    The plan was months in the making. The inmates figured they would corner a solitary guard — any guard would do — and beat him with a pipe before covering his face with plastic wrap.

    Once the guard was dead, Robert would put on the dead man's uniform and push a box with Berget inside as the prison gates opened for a daily delivery. The two would slip through the walls unnoticed.

    On the morning of April 12, 2011, the timing seemed perfect. Ronald "R.J." Johnson was alone in a part of the prison where inmates work on upholstery, signs, custom furniture and other projects. Johnson wasn't supposed to be working that day — it was his 63rd birthday. But he agreed to come in because of a scheduling change.

    After attacking Johnson, Robert and Berget made it outside one gate. But they were stopped by another guard before they could complete their escape through the second gate. Both pleaded guilty.

    In a statement to a judge, Rodney acknowledged he deserved to die.

    "I knew what I was doing, and I continued to do it," Berget said. "I destroyed a family. I took away a father, a husband, a grandpa."

    His execution, scheduled for September, is likely to be delayed to allow the State Supreme Court time to conduct a mandatory review.

    Rodney Berget's lawyer, Jeff Larson, has declined to comment on the case outside of court. Rodney did not respond to letters sent to the penitentiary.

    The few members of the Berget family who survive are reluctant to talk about how seemingly normal boys turned into petty criminals and then into convicted killers of the rarest kind: brothers sentenced to death.

    Dieter, of the Death Penalty Information Center, said some families of the condemned remain involved in appeals. But others see no reason to preserve connections.

    "There's no light at the end of it," he said. "What happens at the end is execution."

    http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...e858359a8f5f67
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  6. #16
    bem17356
    Guest
    DPIC says Breget has a stay, but I can find nothing in any of The South Dakota Newspapers or over the air Media that report this. As they have 5 on Death Row and two warming up in the bull pen for October. I don't suppose they would fail to report a stay. If he had been given one. I've lived and worked in South Dakota. There good people. Kinda slow going, but nothing like so careless as to not report a stay for someone on Death Row.

  7. #17
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Oral argument set for second culprit in killing of correctional officer

    The South Dakota Supreme Court will discuss Rodney Berget's death penalty almost two weeks before his associate will die for the killing of Correctional Officer Ronald Johnson.

    On Monday, the South Dakota Supreme Court set oral argument in State v. Rodney Scott Berget for October 1. The argument will be held at the Jeschke Fine Arts Center on the University of Sioux Falls campus.

    Berget pled guilty to the first degree murder of Correctional Officer Ronald Johnson and was sentenced to death by lethal injection. According to a news release from the Attorney General's Office, "the issues to be determined in the appeal include whether the imposition of the death sentence was constitutional and whether the sentence was excessive to the penalty imposed in similar cases."

    On August 16 the state Supreme Court unanimously upheld the death sentence of Eric Robert, who is scheduled to be executed the week of October 14.

    The United States Supreme Court affirmed Donald Eugene Moeller's conviction on June 4. Moeller is scheduled to be executed the week of November 3.

    http://www.ksfy.com/story/19501013/o...t-set-second-c
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  8. #18
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Appeal hearing set in S.D. death penalty case

    An appeal hearing is set for Monday in the case of a former Brown County man who pleaded guilty to killing a prison guard while trying to escape from the state penitentiary in Sioux Falls.

    The Supreme Court hearing will determine the constitutionality of the death sentence in the case against Rodney S. Berget, 49. It's set for 11 a.m. at the Jeschke Fine Arts Center on the University of Sioux Falls campus.

    An appeal concerning the death penalty for Eric Robert, 49, who also pleaded guilty in the case, was previously been upheld. He's scheduled to be executed the week of Oct. 14.

    The two men killed a 63-year-old prison guard by wrapping his head in plastic shrink wrap and leaving him to die before using his uniform during their unsuccessful escape attempt last year.

    http://www.aberdeennews.com/news/aan...,5229984.story
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  9. #19
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Lawyer Appeals Sentence To SD Supreme Court

    A lawyer for a South Dakota man sentenced to death for killing a prison guard says the state Supreme Court should overturn the ruling because his client was not given a fair trial in the penalty phase of the case.

    Lawyer Jeff Larson argued before the South Dakota Supreme Court on Monday that the sentencing hearing for 50-year-old Rodney Berget was skewed because it came after Judge Brad Zell had already sentenced another inmate to death in the case.

    Berget and 50-year-old Eric Robert had pleaded guilty in the April 2011 killing of prison guard Ronald Johnson during a botched prison escape.

    Attorney General Marty Jackley argued that Berget repeatedly waived his right to a jury trial.

    The court will make its decision at a later date.

    http://www.keloland.com/newsdetail.c...urt/?id=137897
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  10. #20
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Related

    S. Dakota executes inmate who killed prison guard

    By DAVE KOLPACK
    The Associated Press

    SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A South Dakota inmate has been put to death for killing a prison guard by beating him with a pipe and covering his head in plastic wrap during a failed escape attempt.

    Fifty-year-old Eric Robert received lethal injection Monday night in South Dakota's first execution since 2007. That had been the state's first execution in 60 years.

    Robert was put to death in the same prison where he killed guard Ronald "RJ" Johnson in April 2011. Robert was serving an 80-year sentence on a kidnapping conviction when he and inmate Rodney Berget attacked Johnson, killing the guard on his 63rd birthday. Robert and Berget were apprehended before leaving the grounds.

    Robert pleaded guilty and asked for the death penalty, saying he would kill again if he wasn't executed.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

Page 2 of 9 FirstFirst 1234 ... LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •