Posted on 12/02/2004 7:31:32 PM PST by Former Military Chick
HARRISBURG - The Pennsylvania Supreme Court halted the execution of George Banks yesterday, effectively voiding the third death warrant served against the man who murdered 13 people in 1982.
One day before Banks was scheduled to die for the Wilkes-Barre killings, the court ordered a lower court to determine whether Banks, a 62-year-old former prison guard, is mentally competent.
The amount of legal preparation required would make it impossible to hold such a hearing before the execution warrant, signed by Gov. Rendell in October, expires at midnight tonight, state officials said.
"There is no execution now," Susan McNaughton, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections, said.
Since Pennsylvania brought back the death penalty in 1978, governors have signed 293 death warrants (many individuals have more than one), according to the Department of Corrections. Only three executions have been carried out.
Though a few of those death warrants have been voided by exonerations or a reprieve, the vast majority have resulted in seemingly endless stays.
Some legal observers say that illustrates how difficult it is to carry out the death penalty, especially in older cases with more questions about whether a defendant received a fair trial and adequate legal representation.
Of the 225 individuals on death row, more than half have been there more than 10 years, and many have spent 15 years awaiting execution.
Andrew A. Chirls, chancellor-elect of the Philadelphia Bar Association, said that Pennsylvania's low rate of executions to warrants issued showed that death penalty cases were "fraught with potential for errors."
The three inmates who were executed - the last in 1999 - essentially had chosen to stop fighting, Chirls said. He characterized their executions as "assisted-suicide cases."
Banks' attorneys have been fighting his death sentence since it was given in 1983, appealing twice to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Banks had been ruled mentally competent to stand trial for killing five of his children, four current or former girlfriends, and four others in an early-morning rampage on Sept. 25, 1982.
Wielding a semiautomatic rifle, Banks shot most of his victims at close range as they slept.
Defense attorneys had argued that executing Banks was unconstitutional because he suffered from severe mental illness. Banks has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
"He has said he is not really being executed because Jesus Christ had vacated his conviction," said Michael Wiseman, an attorney with the Philadelphia Federal Defender's Project.
"He believed the preparations were being carried out to test his faith in Jesus."
The question of competency in a capital case is not triggered until after the death warrant is signed.
Banks' mother, Mary Yelland, sought the reprieve as a "next friend" of her son, arguing that he was too mentally ill to pursue any appeals.
In its four-sentence ruling yesterday, the Supreme Court directed Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas to hold a hearing "expeditiously." It is unclear when another execution date could be set, should the court find Banks competent.
If the court lifts the stay, Gov. Rendell has 30 days to sign a new death warrant, which he will do, a spokeswoman said yesterday.
Luzerne County District Attorney David Lupas said he was not surprised by the ruling, given the long history of the case and the number of appeals. He vowed to continue to fight on behalf of the victims to see the death penalty imposed.
"This case is not now, nor has it ever been, so much about George Banks as it has his victims, whose lives were needlessly and brutally taken away," Lupas said in a statement.
He added that his office is prepared to "meet head-on whatever challenges are posed" by Banks' defense.
Today, Banks returns to his routine on death row at Graterford Prison. John Banks, who has fought along with his mother to save his brother's life, was relieved.
"For the first time I'm even more than optimistic," he said. "I'm hopeful."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact staff writer Amy Worden at 717-783-2584 or aworden@phillynews.com. Staff writer Christine Schiavo contributed to this story.
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Timeline of Banks Case September 1982: George Banks is relieved of duty as a Camp Hill State Prison guard after a conflict with a supervisor, and is evaluated at a Harrisburg-area hospital for mental-health issues. A later evaluation in Luzerne County, where he lived, characterizes Banks as "filled with hate and anger at the world in general." On Sept. 25, Banks kills 13 people, including five of his children, at two houses in Wilkes-Barre and its suburbs.
March 1983: A three-day hearing results in Banks' being ruled mentally competent to stand trial.
June 1983: Trial testimony begins in Pittsburgh. Against his lawyers' advice, Banks testifies, saying police killed as many as nine of the victims. He is found guilty of killing 13 people, wounding a 14th, and other offenses. He receives 12 death sentences and one life sentence.
November 1985: After Banks' county-level appeals are exhausted, a judge formally imposes the death penalties.
February 1987: State Supreme Court upholds the verdicts.
October 1987: U.S. Supreme Court declines to take up the case.
February 1996: Gov. Tom Ridge signs Banks' death warrant. Banks later receives a stay of execution.
August 1997: An appeal is argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
March 1999: Ridge signs another death warrant for Banks, and a federal judge issues another stay.
October 2001: The Third Circuit reverses the death sentences based on wording of jury instructions.
May 2002: Prison officials obtain a court order to force-feed Banks, who had gone more than 16 days on inadequate food and water.
June 2002: U.S. Supreme Court sends the case back to the Third Circuit, which later upholds its previous ruling in Banks' favor. The case is sent back the U.S. Supreme Court.
June 2004: U.S. Supreme Court rules against Banks.
October 2004: Gov. Rendell signs Banks' death warrant.
Dec. 1, 2004: State Supreme Court halts the execution and orders a county judge to determine whether Banks is mentally competent.
- Associated Press
Banks' Thirteen Victims • Sharon Mazzillo, 24, gunshot wound to the chest. She was a former girlfriend of George Banks and was engaged in a custody dispute over their son, Kissmayu Banks.
• Kissmayu Banks, 5, shot in the face as he slept. He was the son of Sharon Mazzillo and George Banks.
• Scott Mazzillo, 7, shot in the head. He was the nephew of Sharon Mazzillo. George Banks hit him with a rifle butt, kicked him, and accused him of using a racial slur against one of Banks' sons. Then Banks shot him.
• Alice Mazzillo, 47, shot in the face while calling police. She was Sharon Mazzillo's mother.
• Regina Clemens, 29, shot in the face. She was a girlfriend of George Banks, sister of Susan Yuhas, and mother of Montanzima Banks.
• Montanzima Banks, 6, gunshot wound to the heart. She was the daughter of Regina Clemens and George Banks.
• Susan Yuhas, 23, shot in the head. She was a girlfriend of George Banks, sister of Regina Clemens, and mother of Boende Banks and Mauritania Banks.
• Boende Banks, 4, gunshot wound in the face. He was the son of Susan Yuhas and George Banks.
• Mauritania Banks, 20 months, shot in the face. She was the daughter of Susan Yuhas and George Banks.
• Dorothy Lyons, 29, gunshot wound to the neck. She was a girlfriend of George Banks, and the mother of Nancy Lyons and Foraroude Banks.
• Nancy Lyons, 11, shot in head as she tried to protect her baby brother. She was the daughter of Dorothy Lyons, and the half-sister of Foraroude Banks.
• Foraroude Banks, 1, shot in the head. He was the son of Dorothy Lyons and George Banks, and half-brother of Nancy Lyons.
• Raymond F. Hall Jr., 24, gunshot wound to the liver and right kidney. He was a bystander who had been attending a party across the street from the second murder site.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SOURCES: Associated Press files, Luzerne County Coroner's Office. Note: Different spellings exist for the names of the five Banks children.
This guy Banks is evil, no other words can describe it, that I can post.
Cruel and unusual? Torture? Sure. But how different is it than this guy's three stays? Kill him and have done.
Does it really take "mental competance" to DIE? Doesn't seem that complicated to me.
Only to a left-wing lawyer are such pronouncements considered "insane". Sounds to me like he is rightfully fearing the Lord's wrath and trying to repent before it is too late. That makes him "schizophrenic"??? What an insult to every Christian alive!
I'd think it would be easier if he were nuts, just tell him you're strapping him into a rollercoaster.
22 years and they have yet to determine if he is "mentally fit" to be executed? Ummm... he was fit enough to commit the murders - enough said.
Any doubt why so many of us have lost faith in the criminal justice system?
Unbelievable. Just how low-down sick psycho do you have to be to get the death penalty? In my state (NY) I don't know what you'd have to do to get the DP. I mean to have it actually carried out. In NYC we have a DA who absolutely refuses to ask for it, what no matter what, even when policemen are mowed down by low-life drug dealers. Viva Texas and Florida!
LMAO
Things are better here in Oregon.
A CONVICTED child killer wasn't just not executed but actually set free by the Oregon supreme court. The "supremes" reason?, they had taken too long to do the paperwork on his appeal.
Then there was the illegal alien in jail for a horrendous crime. He was given a $280,000 transplant near the same time a resident teenage girl was denied a transplant by the Oregon health plan.
Things are better here in Oregon
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