GALENA, ILL. -- Jurors who found David Damm guilty of murder will return to the courtroom Tuesday morning.

This time their task will be deciding if the crime -- hiring a hit man to beat a 13-year-old girl to death -- warrants further consideration for the death penalty.

"We're seeking the death penalty," said Terry Kurt, Jo Daviess County States Attorney. "We're not done yet. We put a lot of work into this case. The last several months, it's been working every day, every night."

Under Illinois law, a case is eligible for capital punishment if the facts involved meet any of several criteria.

"We have three eligibility factors," said Richard Schwind, chief of criminal enforcement for the Illinois Attorney General's Office, which is helping prosecute the case.

"There's murder for hire, murder of a witness in a criminal prosecution, and the murder was done pursuant to a cold, calculated, premeditated plan," Schwind said.

The only other criteria that must be met is proving Damm was age 18 or older when the crime occurred.

The state contends Damm was facing a sexual abuse investigation by Waterloo police in October 2006 when he hired Bruce Burt to make her disappear.

Burt said he beat her to death with a hammer about 10 miles outside Galena Oct. 27, 2006, and Damm paid him $2,000 of a $5,000 deal for the job.

The defense claimed Damm merely hired Burt to help the girl run away, and Burt killed her when she resisted an attempted rape.

Jurors convicted Damm of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and aggravated kidnapping Thursday after about three weeks of testimony and an hour and a half of deliberation.

The proceedings are expected to last about a day and won't include any witnesses. A birth certificate will be introduced as proof of age, and attorneys for both sides will make their pleas to the jurors.

"Seeking the death penalty wasn't an easy decision … We looked at every nook and cranny of the evidence. We advised Terry … and Terry made the ultimate decision," Schwind said.

Schwind said execution is sought in the "worst of the worst" crimes.

"We advised Terry we believed this was the type of case that the death penalty should be sought," Schwind said.

The eligibility phase requires a unanimous vote of the jurors to proceed. Otherwise the death penalty is off the table.

If jurors conclude the case is eligible for death penalty consideration, the trial enters a third and final phase.

This, the penalty phase, centers on the character of the defendant and the facts of the crime.

The defense will introduce mitigating factors in an attempt to show jurors the defendant isn't as bad a person as one might conclude from evidence submitted during the trial.

Like the second phase, the penalty phase requires a unanimous vote of the jurors to impose a death sentence.

Contact Jeff Reinitz at (319) 291-1578 or jeff.reinitz@wcfcourier.com.