Pa. governor signs warrant for execution

HARRISBURG (AP) -- Gov. Ed Rendell signed a death warrant Tuesday for George Banks, a former prison guard who killed six adults and seven children during a 1982 shooting rampage in Wilkes-Barre.
The governor set an execution date of Dec. 2 for Banks, now a 62-year-old inmate at a maximum-security prison outside Philadelphia.
If the state keeps its schedule, Banks would become the third person put to death in Pennsylvania since 1976, and the first since the 1960s to go to the death chamber involuntarily.
Pennsylvania's three previous executions were carried out only after the condemned men voluntarily ended their appeals and asked to die.
Banks' attorneys have fought for two decades to prevent his execution but may be running out of avenues of appeal.
His case has been before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court three times. Each time, the judges refused to overturn his conviction. A federal appellate court twice overturned Banks' death sentence because of a potentially confusing jury instruction, but both times the decision was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
A federal judge lifted the stay preventing Banks' execution in September. It was unclear whether Banks' legal team is planning another appeal. His lead attorney, Al Flora, did not immediately return a phone message.
Rendell also signed a death warrant Tuesday for Robert Champney, a Schuylkill County man convicted in a murder-for-hire scheme. Champney is likely to seek a stay of the execution order, defense lawyers said.