Mass murderer is spared death

George Banks, the Wilkes-Barre man who went on a rampage in 1982 and killed 13 people, five of them his own children, is too mentally ill to be executed and will not get better, a Luzerne County Court judge has decided.

Judge Michael T. Conahan ruled yesterday that Banks, 67, has a psychotic disorder so "chronic and relentless" that he cannot understand his crimes or connect them to his death sentences.

"Banks' prognosis is hopeless," the judge wrote in his 21-page decree.

The ruling came after the second of two competency hearings ordered by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, part of Banks' 26-year appeal.

Still, it doesn't end the matter; the prosecution vowed to appeal.

In the worst mass murder in Pennsylvania history, Banks on Sept. 25, 1982, shot to death seven children, three girlfriends, a former girlfriend, her mother and a bystander, all in the Wilkes-Barre area.

Banks, who is biracial, later told police that he killed his children to spare them the prejudicial treatment he endured.

Banks was convicted of all the crimes and has been on death row since. But whether he should be executed has been the focus of a fierce legal struggle.

"We are heartened that Judge Conahan rebuffed Pennsylvania's attempt to put to death this frail, mentally addled 67-year-old man," Billy H. Nolas, an assistant federal defender, responded to the ruling by e-mail.

Defense attorney Al Flora said prosecutors should end their decades-long pursuit of the death penalty for Banks, saying it was no longer worth the time and expense.

"I think it's about time that this community really gets beyond the George Banks case," Flora said. "The man is dying in isolation. He's severely mentally ill, and I think each day he's tormented by his own mind."

Prosecutors said they had no intention of dropping the case.

Assistant District Attorney Scott Gartley said that though Banks is mentally ill, he "comprehends the reason for his sentence and its implications" and thus meets the legal standard for execution.

For Banks to die under state and federal law, he must be rational enough to grasp what he has done and link it to the death sentences.

Conahan ruled that despite medical treatment in prison Banks holds to paranoid delusional thinking entwined with religious beliefs.

Banks believes "there is a wide-ranging conspiracy to hold him in prison, despite his pardon from God or Jesus, and that the goal of this conspiracy is to force him to renounce his religion," the judge wrote.

Conahan's ruling was made several weeks after a hearing at Graterford Prison, where Banks is on death row, to determine Banks' mental state.

The judge had decided once before that Banks could not be put to death. But the state Supreme Court ordered a fresh hearing to determine Banks' competency after finding that Conahan improperly barred a prosecution psychiatrist from testifying.