3 hours of deliberation was all it took to convict...

3 hours of deliberation was all it took to convict Richard Taylor of 1st-degree murder for killing Ronald Moore, a prison guard, with a foot-long piece of sharpened metal in 1981.Less than an hour later, those same jurors sentenced him to die. The verdict came 19 years after another jury convicted Taylor of murder and gave him a death sentence. The original verdict was set aside, though. A review of the case revealed that because Taylor's complex mental-health history had not been fully investigated, he had received ineffective trial counsel, a decision that was later upheld by a state appellate court. One big difference between the latest trial and the one in 1984 was that Taylor was taking his anti-psychotic medication this time. Also, he elected to represent himself without any assistance from lawyers. When Judge Russ Heldman offered him the chance to present closing arguments yesterday, Taylor said, "The defense rests." He had put on no evidence and offered the jury no explanations or mitigating factors. Taylor has been diagnosed with a variety of mental illnesses, including borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia, court records show.