The Grand Forks Herald:

FARGO Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. is not mentally ill and is perfectly capable of making choices, some of which have been to sexually assault women, said Dr. Steven Pitt today in federal court.

Through expert witnesses and his family members, the defense has painted a picture of Rodriguez as damaged physically, mentally and psychologically by poverty, racism, sexual abuse and exposure to farm pesticides, unable to function normally in society. And undeserving of the death penalty.

Pitt said he found Rodriguez "pleasant" and "cooperative," but someone with a history of choosing bad behavior and violence against women that he blamed on others and circumstances, rather than himself.

"Mr. Rodriguez has shown time and time again the capacity to make choices to engage in behaviors, be it lawful or unlawful," Pitt said.

Well-known from his work for prosecutors and police in the Jon Benet Ramsey case and the Columbine school massacre in Colorado, Pitt was interviewed on cable TV shows and in the press this summer over the bizarre turn the Ramsey case took for a time.

Pitt said today Rodriguez is a sexual deviant, anti-social and anxious, but does not suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome or severe depression, Pitt said, countering testimony from two defense expert witnesses.

Pitt said Rodriguez's records "are devoid of any mental illness."

Pitt said Rodriguez told him his impoverished boyhood "really didn't bother me," and that he "always had shoes and a roof over his head."

Rodriguez told him he hung out with the "hoodlums," in middle school in Crookston in the 1960s and began smoking and abusing many kinds of drugs and alcohol.

Rodriguez told Pitt he had been suspended for three days from high school for "defending himself" in striking and attacking a teacher who had pushed Rodriguez and a friend into some lockers.

"That theme pervades all the stories" Rodriguez tells of his life, Pitt said. "He's the one who's being shafted, he's the one getting a raw deal. It's a rationalization."

Rodriguez's stories of why he acted badly changed, too, as it served him, Pitt said. He told Pitt that he sexually assaulted a Crookston woman he knew in 1974 as a form of retribution.

"Because years earlier her and some other boys and girls were involved in pulling his pants down in front of the class," Pitt said. "He said he took care of the guys but had never taken care of the girls."

In the case of the second 18-year-old woman he was convicted for sexually assaulting in the fall of 1974, Rodriguez told Pitt he had a fight with his girlfriend. "As a result, he was upset and went out" and raped the woman, after kidnapping her using a knife.

Rodriguez gave Marilyn Hutchinson, a psychologist hired by the defense, a different story of why he sexually assaulted those two women, blaming racism, Pitt said. "Depending on who he's talking to, you get a different answer," Pitt said.

Last week I discussed the defendant's hiring of a psychologist who claimed that Rodriguez wasn't really responsible for the crimes that he committed. I showed that this professional defense witness and community activist is pretty much a one-trick pony when it comes to her testimony.

The Herald in my opinion gave much more coverage to defense than the prosecution in this phase of the trial. I guess that doesn't really matter as the jury is the group that counts.

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