Wednesday, April 24, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
Convicted killer Jerry Lopez cried at his penalty hearing as his mother and girlfriend asked a jury to show him mercy and spare his life.
Lopez, 26, then took the witness stand and pleaded in an unsworn statement for a chance to see his children again.
The jury in District Judge Sally Loehrer's courtroom has that power over Lopez and 25-year-old tattooed killer Kevin Lisle.
The jury that convicted them last week of murdering the son of the then-North Las Vegas Police Chief can sentence them to death by lethal injection or life in prison with or without the possibility of parole.
Witnesses blamed Lisle -- already convicted of another murder -- for the shooting death of 19-year-old Justin Lusch on a lonely road northwest of Las Vegas in August 1994.
Lopez, witnesses said, told friends that he watched the slaying in his car's rear view mirror.
But on the witness stand, Lopez -- who did not testify on his own behalf during the guilt phase of the trial -- suggested he wasn't involved.
He apologized to the Lusch family because "of what people did to you."
He told the jury, "I'm trying to dig my way out of the dirt thrown on me."
Had Lopez pointedly denied being the killer during Tuesday's testimony, he would have opened the door for prosecutors to cross examine him.
But while unsworn statements are basically free opportunities for murderers to affect their sentences with little risk, it was an opportunity that Lisle passed up Tuesday.
Instead, he sat slumped in his chair at the defense table, aware that the jury's decision is meaningless since he already has been handed a death sentence for the October 1994 expressway slaying of Kip Logan.
It was up to Lisle's mother, Sherry Jones, to try to sway the jury -- which was to begin deliberations today following closing arguments.
Jones told how Lisle had been abused as a child and rejected by family members when he began having problems.
She recalled how "all of a sudden he went straight down (because of) people he met, choices he made."
Jones described Lopez as a "bad influence" on Lisle.
"He got in trouble when he got around Lopez," she said.
One of those times was when they took Lusch -- who they believed was a "snitch" who owed them money for drugs -- to a dirt road near Lone Mountain and shot him.
Lisle was said to be the triggerman who bragged that Lusch was "a rat and I'm glad I did it," Deputy District Attorney Dan Seaton said during closing arguments in the guilt phase.
When court ended for the day, Lisle and Lopez chatted casually for a few moments with their families before returning in belly chains to the Clark County Detention Center.
The lightest sentences they could receive would be life prison terms with the possibility of parole after 20 years.
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