SHREVEPORT, La. - Jurors have sentenced a 35-year-old Ohio man to death for repeatedly raping a 5-year-old girl.
The Caddo Parish, Louisiana, jury, which two days earlier had taken 90 minutes to convict Richard Davis of aggravated rape, needed five hours to make Wednesday's decision between life in prison and death by injection.
Davis, who says he is from Evansport, Ohio, in Defiance County, had wept earlier in the day during his sentencing hearing when Assistant District Attorney Lea Hall said, "Execute this man. Justice has a sword, and this sword needs to swing today."
His shoulders shook slightly and his head hung low as each of the nine men and three women confirmed the sentence.
Davis is the second person in Louisiana to be sentenced to death for raping a child.
He was convicted Monday under a 1995 law that allows capital punishment for raping a child less than 12 years old.Prosecutors say Davis used the girl as a sex toy for him and his girlfriend from October, 2004, to January, 2005.
The girl told her parents, who contacted authorities. Now 8 years old, she testified against Davis.
Defense attorney Kurt Goines made an impassioned plea for life, saying Davis should be spared because he has mental problems.
Judge Scott Crichton must formally sentence Davis before he is transferred to the Louisiana State Penitentiary.
The verdict will be automatically appealed to the Louisiana Supreme Court. It will be years before all appeals are exhausted and Davis could be executed.
Defiance County Sheriff David Westrick said Davis has "never been on our radar."
The sheriff said none of his deputies has ever heard of Davis, and the convicted rapist did not come up in a search of the sheriff's office computer files.
According to records at the Caddo Parish jail, Davis' listed address is 51 Main St. in Evansport. But Sheriff Westrick said addresses on Main Street in Evansport contain four numbers.
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