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| Death Row Inmate Dies in Prison Hospital |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 02/13/2006 |
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Mitchell Rupe, a former death row inmate once found too obese to hang, died at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla last week, following a long illness, a prison spokeswoman said. He was 51. Spokeswoman Lori Scamahorn said Rupe died in the prison hospital, where he'd been since Jan. 3 in the final stages of liver disease. Rupe shot two Olympia bank tellers to death at point-blank range during a 1981 robbery. Juries twice sentenced him to death, but higher courts overturned the sentences. In 1994, a federal judge upheld his conviction but agreed with Rupe's contention that at more than 400 pounds, he was too obese to hang because of the risk of decapitation. Rupe argued that would amount to cruel and unusual punishment. At the time, Washington's only manner of execution was hanging. The main method now is lethal injection, although a condemned inmate can still opt for hanging. Prosecutors tried for the death penalty a third time in 2000, but a jury deadlocked just shy of the unanimous vote required for capital punishment. Rupe suffered from a terminal liver disease, and there was doubt at that time whether he would have lived long enough to be executed even if the jury had been unanimous. Frank Brown, the Walla Walla County coroner, estimated that Rupe weighed between 260 and 270 pounds at the time of his death. |
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