A three-judge panel has set a June 1 hearing to announce its decision on whether Patrick Schroeder will be sentenced to death for killing his prison cellmate last year.
District Judges Vicky Johnson of Wilber, Robert Otte of Lincoln and John Marsh of Kearney heard evidence last month on aggravators.
Prosecutors alleged just one aggravator was needed to make the case eligible for the death penalty — and Schroeder, who represented himself, chose not to fight the death penalty and made no argument or case for why the judges shouldn’t give it to him.
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He admitted to strangling inmate Terry Berry at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution on April 15, 2017, because he wouldn’t stop talking.
Berry had been moved into Schroeder's cell almost a week earlier. Schroeder said he knew it wasn’t going to work, but he said prison staff just laughed when he asked for the cellmates to be separated.
Corrections officers bring Patrick Schroeder into court for his death penalty hearing before a three-judge panel at the Johnson County Courthouse in Tecumseh in April. Schroeder, 40, has confessed to the slayings of Kenny Albers in 2006 and Terry Berry in 2017.