The main suspect in the murder of José Sucuzhañay goes to trial for the second time on Tuesday after a mistrial in the first case last month.

Charged again with second-degree murder as a hate crime, Keith Phoenix faces a mandatory life sentence if convicted. The Yonkers resident, who was also on parole for robbery at the time of the attack, brutally beat Ecuadoran immigrant and Bushwick resident José Sucuzhañay with a baseball bat in 2008. Sucuzhañay died the next day.

According to the New York Daily News, Prosecutor Josh Hanshaft told the Brooklyn Supreme Court jury on Tuesday, "The defendant killed José, murdered José because he didn’t like the way he looked."  

The prosecutor charges that Phoenix along with his accomplice Hakim Scott, who was found guilty of first-degree manslaughter in the attack last month, attacked Sucuzhanay and his brother Romel, because Phoenix believed "they were a gay Hispanic couple."  Previous witness testimony alleges that Phoenix said, "Look at those two little fags" before jumping out of his SUV to attack Sucuzhanay.

Phoenix, who confessed to the crime, told police when he was first arrested, "So I killed someone. That makes me a bad guy? What’s the big deal?"

His lawyer, Phillip Smallman, told jurors that the attack was fueled by alcohol, not by hate. "Alcohol was running through this like the Nile River runs through Egypt," he said.