Pa. court backs life in prison for killer

HARRISBURG - A convicted serial killer should serve life sentences for his crimes instead of facing the death penalty because he is mentally disabled, the state Supreme Court has ruled.

The court on Wednesday upheld a Dauphin County Court judge's ruling that vacated two death sentences for Joey Miller, a Steelton man convicted in March 1993 of murdering two women, on grounds of his disability.

Judge Jeannine Turgeon initially vacated the sentences in December 2002, citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from earlier in the year banning the executions of people who are mentally disabled. Prosecutors appealed and sought to have her removed from the case.

Instead, Turgeon conducted a second hearing last August after the state Supreme Court ordered one to determine whether Miller met new standards for mental disability.

The high court had adopted a system that considers both "limited intellectual function" and "deficiencies in adaptive skills," and said it would not rely on a "cutoff IQ score."

Mental-health experts found that Miller functioned as a husband, father and employee, despite his low IQ, said Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico Jr. Miller also demonstrated premeditation by planning the murders and targeting minority women, Marsico said.

But Turgeon found him mentally disabled and vacated the death sentences.

Miller's victims, Selina Franklin and Stephanie McDuffey, were found buried in a Harrisburg-area landfill, as was a third woman, Jeanette Thomas. Miller, 41, confessed to killing Thomas but has not been charged in her death.

He is also serving life in prison for the 1990 murder of Kathi Novena Shenck, a woman whom he ran over several times with his car and then buried in a dump in neighboring Perry County.