Top Pa. court orders competency hearing for mass killer

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — The state Supreme Court has ordered another competency hearing for a man who killed 13 people in a 1982 shooting rampage in northeastern Pennsylvania.

The high court set aside a judge’s determination that George Banks is too mentally unstable to be executed, saying former Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan failed to conduct an independent review of the evidence as required and simply adopted the conclusions of Banks’ attorney as his own.

Conahan — who was removed from the bench for corruption earlier this year — ruled in September 2008 that Banks is psychotic and unable to comprehend his sentence or participate in his defense, making him incompetent to be put to death.

Banks, a former prison guard, used a semiautomatic rifle in his Sept. 25, 1982, rampage through two houses in Wilkes-Barre and nearby Jenkins Township.

He killed a total of seven children; his three live-in girlfriends; an ex-girlfriend; her mother; and a bystander in the street.

Banks, who is biracial, has maintained that he shot his children to spare them the racial prejudice he endured in Wilkes-Barre, a city 100 miles north of Philadelphia.

Prosecutors noted his history of abusing women and said he had been involved in a nasty custody battle with one of the victims.

Defense experts testified at last year’s hearing that Banks believes his sentence has been vacated by God or Jesus, that he is no longer under the threat of death, and that he is being held in prison as part of a conspiracy to get him to renounce his religious beliefs.