SACRAMENTO — Through mental-health experts and childhood friends, attorneys for convicted killer Richard Joseph Hirschfield will portray their client as the product of a “damaged, chaotic” youth, fraught with multiple forms of abuse, in hopes of sparing him from the death penalty.

“It had a significant impact on his childhood development, and it certainly mitigates his later conduct,” defense lawyer Linda Parisi told reporters Tuesday, following a final court hearing in the UC Davis “sweethearts” case before the trial’s penalty phase begins Monday.

What the experts will say remained unclear even by the hearing’s end, however, as Hirschfield’s two lawyers said they have yet to receive the doctors’ reports and, until they get them, can’t confirm which ones they plan to call to the witness stand.

Hirschfield, 63, was convicted Nov. 5 of kidnapping and killing UCD students John Riggins and Sabrina Gonsalves on Dec. 20, 1980. Now, the jury that found him guilty must recommend whether his punishment should be lethal injection or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Jurors will hear evidence both mitigating and aggravating, including victim impact testimony from the slain teens’ family and friends, and references to Hirschfield’s past convictions for rape and child molestation. Prosecutor Dawn Bladet also plans to question a niece who claims Hirschfield molested her several times between the ages of 5 and 8.

Parisi said outside court that her client’s life of disadvantage began at conception, when his mother’s rape by her stepfather resulted in Hirschfield’s birth. He became the oldest of six children raised by a single mother, and “a lot of the responsibility fell to Mr. Hirschfield … so he could help provide for the family that lived in poverty.”

Hirschfield also was abused physically, emotionally and sexually during his childhood in Colusa County, and friends from both grammar and high school in will testify that he was bullied and ostracized as a student, according to Parisi.

“They all acknowledged that Mr. Hirschfield’s childhood was very difficult,” she said.

Parisi said she also may call to the stand Hirschfield’s mother, who is on the prosecution’s list of potential rebuttal witnesses as well.

At least one of the mental-health experts being considered by Hirschfield’s lawyers, clinical and forensic psychologist Rahn Minagawa, testified last year in another high-profile local trial — that of Marco Topete, the former Davis resident sentenced to death for the 2008 shooting death of Yolo County Sheriff’s Deputy Jose “Tony” Diaz.

Minagawa told jurors during the guilt phase of that case that Topete suffered from “complex trauma” at the time of the murder due to years of childhood abuse and exposure to violent altercations.

Also Tuesday, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael W. Sweet ruled he would make public at noon today the contents of a 266-page journal penned by Hirschfield while he was incarcerated for child molestation at a Washington state prison, despite requests by the defense that it remain sealed until after the penalty phase concludes.

Sweet will decide Monday whether Bladet can introduce to the jury excerpts of the journal, in which Hirschfield reportedly documents the molests of several female relatives and muses about the sexual desires and abilities of girls as young as age 4.

“It is the writer’s twisted perception that I’m trying to get in,” Bladet said. “It just goes to (his) sexual deviant intent.”

Hirschfield’s lawyers have referred to the journal as “fictional writings.”

— Reach Lauren Keene at [email protected] or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter @laurenkeene

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