AKRON, Ohio -- Jurors in Donna Moonda's trial must decide starting tomorrow whether she will live or die.

They already have found her guilty of arranging her husband's murder on the Ohio Turnpike. But Mrs. Moonda may find some hope in remembering that many jurors seemed uncomfortable with the possibility of putting her to death.

Before they were selected, several of the seven women and five men on the jury said they were not sure they could vote for her execution.

"It would be a heart-wrenching decision for me. It would require a lot of soul-searching," said a female juror who works as a security officer at a residential complex.

		A guide to the Moonda case Previous Post-Gazette articles, photos and graphics, plus federal court documents, are available on our Moonda index page.

The man who eventually became jury foreman testified that his late brother was a police officer. He seemed to be the type of juror defense lawyers try to get rid of, given his connection to law enforcement. But the defense made no move to excuse him, in part because he said he generally opposes the death penalty.

In contrast, a female juror who once worked for the Portage County Board of Elections said she could vote for the death penalty.

Then David L. Grant, one of the defense lawyers, asked the juror what she thought about having Mrs. Moonda's life in her hands.

"It's very sobering," the juror said, an answer the defense seemed to like.

Federal prosecutors liked this juror, too. She was well-spoken and said she had tried to teach values to her children.

Mrs. Moonda's dishonesty and adultery were important evidence against her during the first stage of her trial. That part of the case ended with jurors convicting her of murder for hire and three other felonies after nine hours of deliberation.

They learned that Mrs. Moonda, 48, of Hermitage, Mercer County, was having an affair with 26-year-old Damian Bradford. She used her husband's money to pay for Mr. Bradford's rent, vehicles, jewelry and clothes.

The jury found that she later hired Mr. Bradford to kill Dr. Gulam Moonda, 69, a urologist with a $4 million estate. Mrs. Moonda and Mr. Bradford plotted the murder for about six months before carrying it out in May 2005.

Prosecutors say Mrs. Moonda was so ruthless that she watched her husband die, then gave a false description of the shooter to try to help Mr. Bradford escape.

Her greed and premeditation are "aggravating factors" that justify a death sentence, prosecutors say.

Defense lawyers will counter that Mr. Bradford last week received a 17¹/₂-year prison term, even though he was the one who actually shot Dr. Moonda. Mr. Bradford obtained his relatively lenient sentence by pleading guilty and testifying against Mrs. Moonda.

Still, the defense will tell the jury that Mr. Bradford could go free when he is about 40 years old, but prosecutors want Mrs. Moonda executed.

Mr. Grant also plans to call at least some of Mrs. Moonda's three sisters as witnesses.

He will not say whether Mrs. Moonda herself will speak. She did not testify during the first phase of her trial.

Even so, jurors learned that Mrs. Moonda was fired from her nursing job in 2003 for stealing narcotics and then lying about it. She went to a rehab center, where she met Mr. Bradford, a cocaine addict and small-time drug dealer.

All the jurors promised to consider "mitigating factors" -- evidence of why Mrs. Moonda may deserve a sentence of life in prison instead of death.

But one juror, a husky warehouse foreman, said his philosophy was that the punishment should fit the crime.

The defense had many chances to dismiss this man from the jury, but elected to keep him. Prosecutors liked him, finding him plainspoken and hard-working.

Another juror the defense wanted was a female surgical technician. Mrs. Moonda's lawyers asked her how she felt about nurses who become addicted to drugs.

"It happens," the juror said.

The defense opted to keep her, even though she is married to a police sergeant in suburban Akron.

Prosecutors accepted this juror, too. When asked the most important lesson she could teach her stepchildren, the juror said: "To do the right thing."

Both sides say testimony will be brief. The question of life or death for Mrs. Moonda should be in the jury's hands in two or three days.

When jurors were deciding Mrs. Moonda's guilt, U.S. District Judge David Dowd told them their decision had to be unanimous. Prosecutors say the same rule of law applies in the penalty phase.

But Mrs. Moonda's lawyers have argued the opposite, filing court papers that say the jury can "agree to disagree" when deliberating on her punishment. A split jury would mean a life sentence for Mrs. Moonda.

Prosecutors countered with a brief of their own that says jurors are required to try to reach a unanimous decision. In part, their brief said: "If you unanimously find that the comparative weight of the aggravating factors is sufficient to justify a sentence of death, then you should enter your finding on the verdict form."

Likewise, prosecutors said, if jurors give more weight to "mitigating factors," they should vote to spare Mrs. Moonda's life.

Mrs. Moonda could become the third woman on death row in the federal judicial system. The U.S. government, though, has executed no woman since 1953.

State governments, mostly in the South, have executed 11 women since 1984.