"I wasn't going to die an old man in prison," Rivas testified in the penalty phase of his trial.

Rivas was convicted of murdering an Irving police officer during an escape with six fellow inmates that set off a nationwide manhunt.

At the time of the December escape, he was serving 17 life sentences for two robberies, along with another life sentence for violating probation for a home burglary.

"I'm a convict," Rivas said. "I robbed and I'm wrong for it, but I'm still a human being."

He has admitted he orchestrated the escape from a South Texas prison and fired some of the 11 shots that struck Officer Aubrey Hawkins on Christmas Eve. The inmates were eventually tracked down the next month in Colorado. One committed suicide.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the killing of Hawkins. Defense attorneys are lobbying for a life sentence.

Rivas, 31, cried softly as he described a bleak childhood that he said included his stepfather abusing his mother and half siblings.

"That man is not a man," he said. "That coward. He used to hurt my mother, and back then police would tell my grandmother they couldn't do nothing unless my mother filed a complaint and she never would."

Rivas lived with his father and maternal grandmother while growing up.

"I grew up calling my grandmother `Mom.' I only knew my mother more like a big sister, really."

He denied sexually assaulting a relative, who testified earlier in the sentencing phase of his trial that Rivas began molesting her when she was 6.

"Absolutely not," he said. "In this courtroom is the first time I ever heard something like that."

On Monday, Dr. Richard E. Coons, a forensics psychiatrist, testified that Rivas cannot be rehabilitated and would commit violence again.

Coons said Rivas is a career criminal who continued "business as usual" after killing Hawkins.

"It is clear the concept of violence is fine with that person," he said.

Defense attorneys have said Rivas never wanted to harm anyone and did not intend to kill Hawkins, only to shoot him in the shoulders to disarm him. They have lobbied for a life sentence, in which Rivas could be isolated from the prison population in an administrative segregation cell.