DENVER -- Opening arguments were expected Monday morning in the trial of the first federal defendant facing the death penalty in Colorado since Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in 1997.

William Sablan, 42, is charged with first-degree murder in the October 1999 death of Joey Jesus Estrella, 33, in their cell at the federal penitentiary in Florence, Colo. Sablan's cousin and cellmate, Rudy Sablan, also faces a first-degree murder charge, but his trial date hasn't been scheduled.

Federal prosecutor Brenda Taylor told the jury during opening statements that they'll hear testimony about prison crowding that resulted in the three men sharing a cell designed for two. She said they'll hear "the blame game" about inmates drinking in violation of prison rules and guards not responding to a duress button pushed in the cell.

"Ladies and gentlemen, you are not going to like some of the people," Taylor said. "But at the end of the day, William Sablan is responsible for the carnage of Oct. 10."

Jurors will see the carnage for themselves during the trial, expected to last up to four months. Taylor said a video camera set up by guards as they were waiting for a special team to take the Sablans out of the cell show William Sablan holding up Estrella's internal organs and making obscene gestures.

The defendants can be heard in English and Chamorro, which is spoken on their native Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, Taylor said. William Sablan admits to killing Estrella on the video, she said.

Defense attorney Patrick Burke ticked off a litany of what he said were violations of prison rules and lapses: drinking; guards failing to respond to the duress call and to reports that the men were fighting; officials' failure to give the defendants breath tests even though a machine was handy.

"It's not a blame game. It's not 20/20 hindsight. Those are the facts," Burke said.

Other inmates said that the three were smoking, playing cards and drinking homemade wine before a fight broke out. An autopsy showed Estrella bled to death from being slashed in the neck, and that some of his organs had been removed after he died.

William Sablan, a native of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, has a criminal history dating to 1984 that includes convictions for holding a couple at knifepoint, attacking two men on a golf course and attempting to strangle a shop owner with a telephone cord. While in prison for the golf-course attack, he and other inmates "took over" the prison, holding a group of Chinese inmates hostage, according to court filings.

Sablan's attorneys have said in court filings they will pursue an insanity defense.