Jury weighs fate of murderer, 21

Erica D. Johnson

Wednesday, March 3, 2004 | 11:17 a.m.

Moments before they were to begin deliberating his fate on Tuesday, a 21-year-old man convicted of first-degree murder asked jurors to sentence him to death.

This morning they were to continue trying to decide how Anthony Prentice should be punished for the September 2002 slaying of Dan Miller, a 58-year-old driving instructor who had let Prentice live with him.

Miller was stabbed 128 times and a swastika was carved in his back.

Prentice told the jurors Tuesday: "I don't want my attorney speaking on my behalf. I want the death penalty."

Prentice, an admitted white supremacist, also told the jury: "I didn't kill nobody. You guys found me guilty because of my racist beliefs. You guys found me guilty because I'm a racist."

But Chief Deputy District Attorney Ed Kane told jurors to return with a fair punishment, without concern for the defendant's request.

"Anthony Prentice deserves to die," Kane said. "He does not deserve to die for what he believes. He deserves to die for what he did."

Prosecutors say Prentice and his friend, James Harrison, tortured and killed Miller, who was white, in Miller's apartment near Harmon Avenue and Paradise Road. Harrison is awaiting a separate trial.

Authorities believe a robbery or Harrison's initiation into a white supremacist group could have been the motive.

Defense attorney Greg Denue urged jurors to return a sentence of life in prison without parole.

"(Prentice) wants death because he doesn't want the living hell of life without parole," Denue said.

Denue also said his client could have been trying to gain favor with the racist group he is involved in by requesting the death penalty.

"In some twisted and deranged way, that's a badge of honor," Denue said. "Don't give him that status. Don't give it to him."

Prosecutors and Miller's family members said Miller was a friend and mentor to Prentice and that he frequently helped others who were down on their luck. Seven months before his death, Miller wrote a letter to the court on Prentice's behalf, asking for leniency in a separate case.

Prentice had violated parole after pleading guilty to a felony charge of malicious destruction of private property. The charge stemmed from a June 2001 riot at the Summit View Youth Correctional Center. Prosecutors say Prentice was a ringleader of that uprising.

Authorities had charged Prentice as an adult. Miller had asked the court to give the teen a second chance.

"(Miller's) only crime was trying to help the defendant in this case," Chief Deputy District Attorney Vickie Monroe said. "His reward was 128 stab wounds and a swastika carved on his back."

"Ladies and gentlemen," Monroe told the jurors, "this is judgment day."

Psychologists who testified Tuesday said Prentice had a troubled childhood in which he was shifted between several foster homes after his father went to prison.

Prentice himself was incarcerated in the juvenile system about a half dozen times since he was 8 years old. Psychologist Luis Mortillaro said Prentice also was emotionally and physically abused as a child.

He said Prentice had "violent tendencies" and noted that Prentice had enrolled in kickboxing classes as a teen.

"Fighting was one of his ways to decrease some of the frustration and aggression," he said.

But Monroe said Prentice's troubled past was irrelevant.

"This is not an excuse hearing. This is a punishment hearing," she said.