A convicted double murderer sentenced to death said "Damnit, I missed" as he struck his lawyer in this face with his elbow.
Joseph Zieler attacked attorney Kevin Shirley in courtroom full of people after beckoning him over.
The lawyer approached Zieler as he believed he wanted to discuss his testimony ahead of his upcoming sentencing, the Mirror reports.
"Throughout the trial, Mr Zieler would seek to confer with me, and since I was seated the farthest from him, he would wave me over and frequently called me 'Mr Shirley,'" Shirley told the Mirror.
"For this particular occasion, he waved me over and called me 'Kevin,' and he seemed to be in haste."
The bailiffs closed in and watched closely as Shirley approached and Zieler motioned for him to lower his head.
"I assumed it was because the microphones were there and he did not want anyone to hear what he was going to say to me," he said. "So, I leaned my head down, and I was facing a little bit away from him."
That's when Zieler seized the moment and struck Shirley "near the right eye with his elbow."
"At some point during that, he said, 'Damnit, I missed,'" the attorney said.
Shirley believes Zieler had been trying to strike him harder but had been unable to due to his handcuffs.
The lawyer believes the convict lured him close so he could strike him by taking advantage of the "good working relationship" but does not think the attack was personal.
"I'm just happy he didn't strike my co-counsel or, more specifically, our mitigation specialist," he said. "She was seated at the time, and he was closer to her until I walked over near him."
Shirley said Zieler had anticipated the death penalty so it was unlikely the attack was about rage for his sentence.
In May, it was recommended Zieler face the death penalty for the rape and suffocation of 11-year-old Robin Cornell and her 32-year-old babysitter, Lisa Story, back in 1990.
He had been attempting to overturn the decision at an appeal on Monday when he struck Shirley.
He was ultimately sentenced to death at that hearing.
Shirley is not sure what Zieler hoped to accomplish by attacking him but thinks he may have been trying to cause a scene.
On Monday, Zieler also painted the word "killer" on his teeth after branding the word into a styrofoam veneer made in prison, which he wore to the courtroom.
Following the elbow incident, neither Zieler nor any member of his family, who Shirley said he isn't close to, made any attempt to apologise to Shirley.
But Shirley is no stranger to client hostility.
“I’m sure I’ve upset clients along the way," he said. "I’ve handled 10s of thousands of cases, so I’m sure there’s more than one person out there that’s pissed off at me.”
In all his time handling death penalty cases, Shirley has never encountered anyone who took at swing at him since starting out as a defense attorney in 1988.
"That was different," he said.
“I wish I could have defended myself — not necessarily punching him back, but at least I could have fended off his swing at me," he added. "That was the only embarrassing part was not seeing it coming.”
Despite the incident, Shirley is resolute in his drive to continue defending accused criminals.
“Somebody has to step up and defend," he said of why he decided to become a defense attorney in the first place. “We have no idea how many people are sitting behind bars that have no business being there. There are other organizations fighting the good fight and trying to free those people, and I’m just trying to do what I can to make sure they don’t get there in the first place.”
Shirley has also already brushed Zieler's attack — in part because he believes the double-murderer won't survive long enough to even see his sentence carried out.
“He’s 61 years old, he’s not in good health, and I don’t think he’s going to survive," he said. “I do not personally believe Mr. Zieler will be alive when he becomes eligible to have his sentence carried out.”
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