Miami jury recommends death for Couey

MIAMI, March 15 (UPI) -- A Miami jury took just 75 minutes to recommend the death penalty for the convicted killer of a 9-year-old girl who was kidnapped and buried alive.

"This is justice for Jessica," victim Jessica Lunsford's father, Mark Lunsford, said of the jury's 10-2 recommendation for John Evander Couey, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

Couey's sentence will be decided by Citrus County Judge Richard Howard. Couey's lawyers argued that their client should be imprisoned because, they claimed, he is mentally retarded.

The Sentinel said that if the judge finds that Couey is mentally retarded he cannot be executed under a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

Jurors found Couey guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping, burglary and sexual battery. He kidnapped Jessica Lunsford from her home, raped her on his bed and held her captive in his closet before burying her alive in plastic bags behind the Homosassa, Fla., mobile home he shared with his sister, the newspaper said.

"There was a lot of evidence -- prints, the DNA, most of the scientific facts that you just cannot say no to," juror Thais Prado told reporters. "That is something that definitely helped us make our decision."