USA - California. John Joseph Lydon, 39, white, was sentenced to death

John Joseph Lydon, 39, white, was sentenced to death for the murder of his cellmate at Tracy's Deuel Vocational Institution, the 2nd time he had killed an inmate in prison. Lydon, who had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, was convicted of 1st-degree murder and found sane in the June 3, 2010 strangling of Jonathan Guy Alexander, who had been imprisoned on a child sex conviction. Lydon, who says he was sexually abused as a child, maintains he had told Deuel staff he didn't want to be housed with any child molesters. Lydon's previous victim at Coalinga's Pleasant Valley Prison in 2004 also was a convicted child molester. In arguing for Lydon's life, defense attorneys presented testimony that Lydon's childhood was marked by sexual abuse at the hands of Boston's defrocked Catholic Priest John Geoghan, and beatings and neglect from his parents. At the time of the 2004 killing he was serving consecutive sentences for a robbery turned fatal.