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| - The 1982 Wilkes-Barre shootings was a spree killing in the United States carried out by George Emil Banks (born June 22, 1942). A former Camp Hill prison guard, Banks fatally shot 13 people on September 25, 1982, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and Jenkins Township. The victims included seven children – five being his own – their mothers, some of their relatives, and one bystander. (en)
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has abstract
| - The 1982 Wilkes-Barre shootings was a spree killing in the United States carried out by George Emil Banks (born June 22, 1942). A former Camp Hill prison guard, Banks fatally shot 13 people on September 25, 1982, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and Jenkins Township. The victims included seven children – five being his own – their mothers, some of their relatives, and one bystander. His attorneys argued for the insanity defense, but, following a trial before jurors from Allegheny County and presided over by Luzerne County Common Pleas judge Patrick J. Toole Jr., Banks was convicted of 12 counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. On November 29, 1990, the Pennsylvania State Legislature barred further use of the electric chair amid debate that electrocution was cruel and unusual punishment; it approved execution by lethal injection. Banks's case was appealed and, on December 2, 2004, he received a stay of execution following a determination that he was incompetent for execution. On May 12, 2010, Luzerne County Common Pleas judge Joseph Augello declared Banks incompetent to be executed, following a competency hearing held the previous month. (en)
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