Staff File Photo by Shane McMillan--Rejon Taylor is escorted into federal court in Chattanooga. The sentencing phase of Chattanooga's first federal death penalty case began today.

Jurors were supposed to begin hearing arguments this morning on why they should save convicted killer Rejon Taylor’s life, but a series of “inflammatory” phones calls Mr. Taylor made to his family within the last two weeks prompted the judge to continue the case until next Monday.

“We’re going to be asking the jury to sentence (Mr. Taylor) to death, and this is one of the reasons why,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Neff told U.S. District Judge Curtis L. Collier Tuesday, trying to persuade him to let the jurors hear the contents of the phone conversations.

According to some of the calls, Mr. Taylor called the 18-member jury panel a bunch of “racist rednecks” after they convicted him of murder, kidnapping and carjacking last week in the death of an Atlanta restaurant owner taken from his home in Buckhead in 2003 and shot on the side of a road in Collegedale.

At one point in the conversations, Mr. Taylor apparently talks about “what is above him and below him” in Chattanooga’s federal building where he has been standing trial. Prosecutors say that comment is part of Mr. Taylor’s ongoing attempt to escape from custody.

Mr. Taylor also mentions that “jail isn’t that bad,” despite his defense attorneys’ plans to argue at the sentencing hearing that being incarcerated for the rest of his life would be worse than receiving the death penalty.

Defense attorney Leslie Cory told the judge that the phone calls were made to family members and do not in any way Mr. Taylor’s “lack of remorse or dangerousness.”

A hearing will be held Monday on whether the prosecution will be allowed to let jurors listen to the recordings.

See tomorrow’s Times Free Press for complete details.

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