A federal inmate accused of strangling and knifing a cellmate to death and then using his entrails to taunt guards and other inmates is brain-damaged and incapable of premeditated murder, a defense lawyer said Monday as the trial began.
William Sablan, 32, could face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder in his trial that began today.
Sablan and his cousin, Rudy Sablan, 47, are the first federal defendants in Colorado to face the death penalty since Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
The two are accused of killing Joey Jesus Estrella, 33, on Oct. 10, 1999, after a night of drinking and fighting in the cell they shared at the federal penitentiary in Florence.
Rudy Sablan’s trial date hasn’t been set.
Federal prosecutor Brenda Taylor told the jury during opening statements that they’ll hear testimony about prison crowding that resulted in the three men sharing a cell designed for two. She said they’ll hear “the blame game” about inmates drinking in violation of prison rules and guards not responding to a duress button pushed in the cell.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you are not going to like some of the people,” Taylor said. “But at the end of the day, William Sablan is responsible for the carnage of Oct. 10.”
Jurors will see the carnage for themselves during the trial, expected to last up to four months. Taylor said a video camera set up by guards as they were waiting for a special team to take the Sablans out of the cell show William Sablan holding up Estrella’s internal organs and making obscene gestures.
The defendants can be heard in English and Chamorro, which is spoken on their native Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, Taylor said. William Sablan admits to killing Estrella on the video, she said.
Defense attorney Patrick Burke ticked off a litany of what he said were violations of prison rules and lapses: drinking; guards failing to respond to the duress call and to reports that the men were fighting; officials’ failure to give the defendants breath tests even though a machine was handy.
“It’s not a blame game. It’s not 20/20 hindsight. Those are the facts,” Burke said.
He said another inmate reported to a guard that he saw Rudy Sablan holding earphone cords around Estrella’s neck while he was yelling at him, and that the guard responded, “They do that stuff when they drink.” Burke said experts will testify that William Sablan, who had just transferred to the prison, has a history of mental health problems, brain damage from previous accidents and a machete attack and post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Burke said the three men were drinking “hooch,” liquor that prisoners make by fermenting fruit.
William Sablan has a criminal history dating to 1984 that includes convictions for holding a couple at knifepoint, attacking two men on a golf course and attempting to strangle a shop owner with a telephone cord. While in prison for the golf-course attack, he and other inmates “took over” the prison, holding a group of Chinese inmates hostage, according to court filings.
The defendant, who has closely cropped hair, was wearing a blue, long-sleeved shirt and pants. An interpreter was sitting at the defense table.
