Lawyers for a black Army Reserve soldier on trial for murder at Fort Gillem in Georgia say that he killed a superior because he was dehydrated and delirious from a crash diet

Staff Sgt. Rashad Valmont faces life in prison if a court-martial convicts him of premeditated murder in the slaying of Master Sgt. Pedro Mercado at Fort Gillem near Atlanta. Valmont admits shooting Mercado six times after he refused the soldier's vacation request. Co-workers testified that Valmont, on top of a yearlong struggle to lose weight, was already stressed after getting a poor performance evaluation and receiving several corrective counselling sessions from his superiors. They say that he spent much of his time at work in the days before the shooting working on a rebuttal to his evaluation.