CHARLESTON, S.C. — Did Christopher Pittman know right from wrong when he shot his grandparents to death with a shotgun three years ago? Could a 12-year-old taking an antidepressant with potentially adverse side effects know right from wrong?

Those issues are at the center of Christopher's double-murder trial, which went to the jury Monday afternoon.

Although the defense worked hard to prove that the antidepressant Zoloft made Christopher temporarily manic and psychotic, defense attorney Andy Vickery urged jurors in his closing argument to find the boy guilty or not guilty — and disregard the possible verdicts of guilty but mentally ill or not guilty by reason of insanity.

The surprise move forced lawyers on both sides to focus on whether Christopher knew right from wrong.

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"Ladies and gentleman, this is the Pittman case. The Joe and Joy Pittman case, that's what this case is about," prosecutor John Meadors said, referring to the victims. "This is their day in court. Stay focused on what's important. Keep your eye on the ball ... the actions of the defendant Christopher Pittman, his state of mind and how he acted."

Christopher admits killing his grandparents, but his lawyers claim that the murders, his statements that the victims deserved to die, and his poor behavior in jail are all attributable to his Zoloft use, his age or both.

Prosecutor John Meadors

Meadors, however, talked at length about Christopher's troubled youth growing up in Florida with his disciplinarian father and the boy's intense dislike for being disciplined by anyone.

That Christopher initially blamed the killings on someone else is proof he knew right from wrong, Meadors said. His eventual confession that his grandparents deserved to die because they disciplined him for getting into a fight on the school bus shows that the Zoloft defense is a "smokescreen," Meadors said.

"The only issue is: Did he know the difference between right and wrong? That's what it boils down to," Meadors said. "It's OK to find a 12-year-old guilty, especially in this case."

'Involuntarily intoxicated'

Vickery appeared to depart from a central argument in the defense case: that Christopher's Zoloft use made him incapable for conforming to the law. If jurors agree with that and find Christopher not guilty by reason of insanity, he would be sent to a psychiatric hospital and eventually a prison.

Instead, Vickery stressed that under South Carolina law, juveniles under age 14 are presumed to be incapable of forming criminal intent and that it is the prosecution's burden to overcome that presumption.

"Lady Justice isn't blind to our children ... We have to judge the 12-year-old. Was he more mature than other 12-year-olds?" Vickery said. "We have a situation where a doctor gave a mind-altering, unapproved drug to a 12-year-old boy. He was involuntarily intoxicated ... He is not guilty."

Vickery spoke at length about testimony that Christopher was normal before he began taking Zoloft and another drug, Paxil, and that his behavior changed for the worse when he was on antidepressants.

Defense lawyer Andrew Vickery

"Either he really is an evil, wicked person, who managed to keep it from everyone for his whole life ... or he was having a very serious side effect of Zoloft," Vickery said, scoffing at a suggestion by prosecutors that the killings were carefully planned and executed. "There is one thing true in his confession. Chris killed his grandparents ... The rest of it is bizarre."

Defense attorney Paul Waldner picked up on the theme of the defendant's youth when it was his turn to address the jury.

"He's not perfect. He's not perfect at all. He's a normal child," Waldner said.

Responding to charges by prosecution witnesses that Christopher sometimes terrorized his sister with a baseball bat and a golf club, Waldner said that his actions sound bad, but really aren't much different from the way he and his siblings played.

"If I made a list of things that we did, it would make Chris Pittman look like Mother Teresa," Waldner said.

Waldner also made an emotional appeal to jurors that Christopher, who was abandoned by his mother and may have been physically abused by his father, needs them to vote not guilty.

"He has been brought out of the darkness of Nov. 28, 2001, and brought into the light of day. That needs to be confirmed," Waldner said. "What you'd be saying is, 'We do not convict children of murder when they have been ambushed by chemicals that destroy their ability to reason.'"

Criminal intent?

Senior prosecutor Barney Giese urged jurors to deliver a guilty verdict that tells Christopher to stop blaming Zoloft and other people and accept that he killed his grandparents because he did not want them to discipline him.

"The discipline that grandfather and grandma had to mete out caused his anger and caused their death," Giese said, reminding jurors that Christopher bragged about the killings in a juvenile detention center.

"There was no doubt that Chris Pittman knew that what he had done was wrong, horribly wrong," Giese said. "If he knew it was wrong, he had criminal intent."

Giese spoke in a soft tone, until he began a powerful demonstration using the .410-gauge shotgun Christopher used to kill his grandparents while they slept. Raising the unloaded weapon and aiming it at the heads of mannequins used to portray the victims, Giese showed how Christopher gunned down his victims.

"No malice? No criminal intent?" Giese said as the weapon's firing mechanism made a loud clicking sound. "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't care how old he is, the state submits that this is as malicious a killing, a murder, as you are ever going to find."

Giese closed his final argument by placing a placard on an easel that contained a three-word sentence from Christopher's confession.

"THEY DESERVED IT," the placard said, in large capital letters.

Jurors began deliberations after lunch.

If convicted of murder, Christopher faces 30 years to life in prison.