USA - Washington. A jury has recommended the death penalty for Byron Scherf, 54, White.

A Snohomish County jury has recommended the death penalty for Byron Scherf, 54, White, a prison inmate convicted last week of killing corrections Officer Jayme Biendl, 34, White, on January 29, 2011. In the afternoon, Superior Court Judge George F. Appel hold a hearing at 1 p.m. and formally imposed the sentence. Scherf is a convicted rapist who was serving a life sentence at the Washington State Reformatory in Monroe when he killed Biendl, 34, in the prison's chapel. During Scherf's trial, the defense didn't dispute that he strangled Biendl with an amplifier cord. But his lawyers suggested he didn't plan to kill Biendl, and said he blacked out in the final minutes of her life. The jury saw Scherf's video confession last week in which he said he first planned to ambush and beat up Biendl over something she said to him. He refused to say what set him off.