Yates to pursue second appeal

OLYMPIA – Arguing that his lawyers were ineffective and lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment, serial killer Robert Lee Yates Jr. on Monday asked Washington’s highest court to stay his Sept. 19 execution. “This is a Capital Case,” the paperwork filed Monday reads across the top. “Emergency Relief Requested.”

Yates also seeks a court-appointed attorney to help prepare another appeal. This is the second round of three possible rounds of appeals; he lost the first one.

Convicted in Spokane County eight years ago of 13 killings, Yates was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to death for killing two women in Pierce County.

Last year, the state’s highest court affirmed Yates’ death sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider the case.

Last week, Pierce County Superior Court Judge John McCarthy signed a death warrant setting Yates’ execution for Sept. 19.

But under state law, Yates, 56, can have that execution stayed while he files a “personal restraint petition.”

Paperwork filed Monday with the state Supreme Court indicates he intends to raise several challenges to his conviction. Specifically, Yates will argue that his trial attorneys failed “to identify and present potentially favorable evidence” during the trial and sentencing phase. Whoever is appointed as his next attorney, he said, will conduct the investigation necessary to present such evidence.

As for lethal injection, Yates says he’ll show “that alternatives to the current method of execution exist” that reduce the risk of suffering or similar harm.

The death warrant signed by McCarthy allows Yates to choose to be hanged, although nothing in the documents filed Monday suggests Yates intends to do that.