New Sentencing Hearing For Berget Requested
by Associated Press
January 04, 2013 9:59 AM
South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley has asked the 2nd Judicial Circuit to schedule a resentencing hearing for a man who helped kill a guard at the State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls.
The state Supreme Court this week overturned Rodney Berget's death sentence and ordered a new sentencing hearing. Justices said the circuit judge who sentenced Berget to die improperly considered a statement Berget made to a psychiatrist.
Jackley has filed a motion asking the circuit court to schedule a new sentencing hearing "at the earliest time convenient for the court and counsel."
The 50-year-old Berget and another inmate, Eric Robert, pleaded guilty to killing guard Ronald Johnson during a failed escape attempt in April 2011. Robert was executed last October. Berget appealed his death sentence.
