Armed with a shank, Barry "The Baron" Mills, the kingpin of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, nearly decapitated an inmate in a bathroom stall for hoarding drugs.
Edgar "The Snail" Hevle, a trusted lieutenant in the Brotherhood, allegedly arranged for the murder of a prisoner who threw a packet of sugar at him, a slight he apparently considered worthy of a violent death.
And Tommy "Terrible Tom" Silverstein, who had earned his stripes by killing three inmates, escaped from his shackles on the way back from the prison showers and killed a guard by stabbing him 20 times.
Acts of brutality and callous retribution among the ranks of the nation's most hardened criminals provide the bedrock of the largest capital case filed in U.S. history, against Aryan Brotherhood leaders, which will begin to unfold in courtrooms in Los Angeles and Santa Ana in the coming weeks.
At least eight convicts, some already serving life sentences and doomed to spend their days in solitary confinement, may get the death penalty if convicted of murder in the upcoming federal racketeering trials. Prosecutors are still deciding whether to seek the death penalty for eight others.
With the aim of winning capital sentences for crimes committed in prison, the case -- which involves 32 counts of murder and attempted murder -- is designed to dismantle the Aryan Brotherhood in much the same way the feds took apart the mob decades ago.
Beyond eliminating key gang leaders by putting them on death row, prosecutors hope the sheer number of gang members they have been able to turn into informants will cripple the Brotherhood.
In a prison note intercepted by authorities, Mills said any Brotherhood defectors should be wiped off "the face of the Earth!"
"It's likely necessary for us to step-up and conduct a thorough evaluation of every brother's personal character and level of commitment, as we currently possess some serious rot that is in fact potentially a cancer!" he wrote in the note.
Defense attorneys said the government's case was flawed, resting on the premise that inmates locked in solitary confinement can operate an elaborate interstate criminal enterprise and that prison snitches are reliable sources.
Attorneys for the inmates are seeking to suppress the testimony of a group of informants they say were housed together at a "supermax" federal penitentiary in Florence, Colo. The defense says "the snitches" were coached by prosecutors and provided with information so they could be convincing on the witness stand.
