Witness: In jail, Scrugs spoke of killing cops

When Philadelphia Correctional Officer Ronald Bubas patrolled his cell block at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility on March 31, 2009, Rasheed Scrugs' quarters presented a problem.

Covering the cell window was a page from the Philadelphia Daily News with photos of seven city police officers killed in the last three years. Bubas told him that it was against prison rules and that he would be "written up."

Scrugs answered with an expletive, and added ". . . all those dead cops. I wish I had killed them all."

In fact, he had killed one: Officer John Pawlowski, 25, in a Feb. 13, 2009, shoot-out at Broad Street and Olney Avenue.

In Common Pleas Court on Tuesday, defense attorneys for Scrugs said the outburst was a measure of the frustration of a man locked in a cell 23 hours a day, recovering from wounds received in the gunfight.

Prosecutors said it was a sign of Scrugs' maliciousness and lack of remorse for his admitted crime - and all the more reason for the jury to sentence Scrugs to death, not life in prison without chance of parole.

Scrugs' mood did not improve, Bubas testified, when told of his punishment for putting the newspaper page on his window: He would be confined to his cell 24 hours a day, pending a hearing.

He picked up the walker he was using and smashed it against his cell wall. Guards shackled him while potentially dangerous pieces of metal were removed and the cell was searched for contraband.

Bubas was among the final witnesses to be called by Deputy District Attorney Edward McCann and Assistant District Attorney Jacqueline Juliano Coelho. The prosecutors said they would end their case Wednesday, and Scrugs' lawyers would begin theirs.

Scrugs, 35, a paroled West Philadelphia robber, pleaded guilty Thursday to first-degree murder in Pawlowski's death. His decision refocused the case on the death-penalty question.

Defense attorney David Rudenstein tried to blunt the impact of Scrugs' words to Bubas, noting that, since his arrest, Scrugs had been released from his cell only one hour a day to use an exercise yard, watch television, or make phone calls.

Rudenstein repeatedly asked Bubas if Scrugs had been offered mental-health treatment to cope with his isolation. Bubas said that Scrugs had not asked for counseling and that he did not know if any was provided.

Rudenstein also asked Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes to block one of the prosecutor's plans for Wednesday: to introduce into evidence a statement about the shooting purportedly handwritten by Scrugs on Feb. 15, 2009, after he awoke from surgery at Albert Einstein Medical Center.

Rudenstein and cocounsel Lee Mandell have argued that their mitigating evidence would show that Scrugs has low intelligence and that when he shot Pawlowski he was high on marijuana and P2P, an illegal drug that often causes excitability and belligerence.

The defense's drug theory got little support from Richard Cohn, a forensic toxicologist hired by prosecutors.

Cohn said he reviewed urinalyses performed on Scrugs at Einstein early on Feb. 14, 2009. The results indicated that Scrugs had used PCP and marijuana before the shooting, but could not show when the drugs were used or their impact.

"It could have been four days before," Cohn testified, "or four hours."