Prosecutors focus on killer’s crime-filled past

Jeffrey Libby

Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2001 | 10:45 a.m.

Racist skinhead John Edward Butler wrote to a Nevada judge as recently as 1997 while in custody for felony auto theft, asking for the chance to "make one last attempt to save myself" from long-term drug abuse and to see his 4-year-old child, according to testimony Tuesday.

During the first day of testimony to determine if Butler, 29, will receive the death penalty for a racially motivated double murder in July 1998, state prosecutors painted a picture of a young man who displayed little regard for the law, whether in prison or out, for much of his life.

Defending attorneys asked the jury not to judge Butler by his one act. They said he was not evil.

The mostly white jury of six men and six women also heard emotional testimony from the aunt of Daniel Shertsy, 21, and from the father of Lin "Spit" Newborn, 24, two anti-racist activists -- one white, one black -- who were shot to death execution-style in the early morning hours of July 4 in the desert northwest of Las Vegas.

Prosecutors have said the two men were lured out to the desert by two women. Butler is the only person to be charged with the murders.

"We are here because Daniel Shertsy was shot at such close range at the bumper of his car that the shell casing embedded in his arm," Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Laurent told the jury. "We are here because Lin Newborn was chased out in the desert and shot."

State prosecutors called eight witnesses, four of them correctional officers, in testimony that lasted more than 3 1/2 hours.

Defending attorneys were expected to present family members, friends and expert witnesses when the trial reconvened at 10 a.m. this morning.

Jurors must decide whether circumstances surrounding the double homicide are aggravating or mitigating. At minimum, Butler could serve 40 years of a life sentence before petitioning for parole. The state is seeking the death penalty.

The testimony from the four correctional officers, a Las Vegas Metro detective and a probation officer portrayed Butler's adult life as one dominated by more than 30 arrests. Those arrests included instances of alleged illegal drug use, car theft, assault and domestic violence. Inside jail he was sanctioned for making knives, flooding his cell and beating another inmate.

Butler was also known to law enforcement as an informant who would talk in order to reduce penalties for his crimes, Officer Greg Damarin testified. Butler returned stolen firearms in exchange for reducing a drug charge for possession of methamphetamine in 1997 and supplied information in another investigation of an operation counterfeiting $100 bills, Damarin said.

While incarcerated at Indian Springs Correctional Center in 1994, Butler received 730 days in solitary confinement for his role in the beating of another inmate.

Butler and three others broke out of their cells, put a pillowcase over the head of an inmate and tied him to a bed frame with electrical cord. They beat him so badly that he had to be hospitalized, correctional officer Richard Smith said.

The victim had stolen a package "presumed to be drugs," Smith said.

But defense attorneys said many other charges against Butler had been dismissed. They said in recent years his behavior had improved and prison officers had entrusted him with small jobs. Probation officer Bonnie Kendall said in an interview with him he had spoken of hopes for the future.

But for most, the testimony described loss.

In her testimony, Dorothy Pinella described her nephew Shertsy, a Nellis Air Force Base airman, as a young man from a large, culturally diverse family.

"The image I'll always hold," Pinella said, "is of his sweet little face on the day he was born, just the possibility, the opportunities, when you bring in a new life."

His murder denied him the chance to marry and to have children, she said.

Lionel Newborn was similarly devastated by his son's death, saying it had left a void he could never fill.

"He was flawed in a way maybe we all ought to be flawed," Newborn said of his son. "He thought everyone ought to be able to get along together. But they can't. I don't know how many times I sat with him and told him to be careful of the people he surrounded himself with. But he was on a mission from day one."

In wide-ranging testimony that also described the recent deaths of his wife and his second son, Newborn left one juror openly weeping when he said, "We were becoming buddies. Lin would say to me, 'When are we going to have a beer, a sandwich?' And I said, 'We'll get around to it.' But I never took the time."