USA - Virginia. Joshua Andrews, 30, black, escapes death sentence by pleading guilty to another killing

Joshua Andrews, 30, black, escapes death sentence by pleading guilty to another killing. A Prince William Circuit Court judge today approved the deal that spares Andrews. Andrews, 30, black, was sentenced to death in 2007 for of killing Romanno A. Head and Robert I. Morrison, both 22, on Jan. 2, 2002 during a robbery. On September 16, 2010 (see) the Virginia Supreme Court overturned the death sentence because 2 of his convictions constituted double jeopardy, the constitutional protection against being tried twice for the same crime. Jurors convicted Andrews of both killing more than 1 person as part of the same act and of killing more than 1 person within a 3-year period. The court also said that the trial court erred by excluding a poem Andrews wrote from mitigating evidence and that it improperly excluded the testimony of a social work expert on the likelihood that Andrews would commit future crimes. In the deal approved today, Andrews pleaded guilty to the December 2001 murder of Clayton Kendall Breeding. A jury had acquitted Andrews of that murder in 2007, but he agreed to switch his plea to guilty in exchange for a guarantee that he would be sentenced to life instead of receiving the death penalty. Andrews was acquitted in three other deaths, including Breeding's killing. The Virginia Supreme Court said that the trial court erred by excluding from mitigating evidence a poem Andrews wrote and that it improperly excluded the testimony of a social work expert on how Andrews' horrific childhood diminished his moral culpability. At age 8, Andrews was pushed into a shed by some kids who set it on fire. He was horribly burned and disfigured, and kids taunted him by calling him "crispy critter" and "mummy." Also as a child, Andrews went to visit his father on death row in Texas. Before his father could be executed, another inmate stabbed him to death. Police seized a poem written by Andrews describing his struggles as a child and how the events had hardened him, but the judge would not allow it as evidence. Meanwhile, the judge allowed prosecutors to refer to Andrews as a "killing machine," leaving the jury with the instructions to, "Turn this machine off." The court upheld Andrews' convictions, but sent his case back to Prince William for a new sentencing, which was scheduled for June.