Murderer Not On List For Liver Transplant State Also Says Double Murderer Wasn’t Taken To UW Medical Center

The head of Washington’s prisons has denied that any inmate, including double murderer and former Death Row inmate Mitchell Rupe, is awaiting a liver transplant.

Chase Riveland, secretary of the Department of Corrections, also discounted news reports that Rupe, whose excessive weight was a factor in preventing his execution, had been taken to University Medical Center in Seattle.

“That’s something that never happened,” Riveland said Friday night in a radio talk show appearance. He declined to comment directly on Rupe’s medical condition but said none of the 11,800 inmates in state prisons is currently on any lists to receive a transplant.

Earlier Friday, state Attorney General Christine Gregoire asked a Thurston County Superior Court to rule that Corrections can release medical information about Rupe, 41.

Rupe was recently transferred from the state penitentiary at Walla Walla to the state reformatory at Monroe for medical evaluation. Corrections officials have refused requests for medical information on Rupe, citing privacy concerns.

Several newspapers and television stations have sought the information in public disclosure requests.

Gregoire’s motion disclosed that Rupe gave permission for the Corrections Department to release medical information about his condition earlier this month, but his lawyers quickly revoked the authorization.

The lawyers could not be reached for comment Friday night.

Gregoire asked the court to find “that the public has a legitimate interest in receiving information from the (Corrections) department about Rupe’s medical condition and that the department has the right and the responsibility to release certain information.” Her motion described Rupe as “seriously ill.”

In essence, the attorney general asked the court to resolve the legal collision between public and private issues.

No hearing date was set, but Assistant Attorney General Scott Blonien said he hopes the matter can come before the court this week.

Rupe was convicted of aggravated murder in the 1981 shooting deaths of two tellers at a Tumwater State Bank branch in Olympia. A jury sentenced him to die.

His death sentence was overturned in September 1994, when U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly ruled that during the penalty phase of his trial, the state court wrongly excluded lie-detector results from a witness whom Rupe claimed was the real killer.

Zilly also said the overweight Rupe could be decapitated if he were executed by hanging and ruled that would be cruel and unusual punishment.

The state has appealed Zilly’s decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

If Zilly’s ruling stands, the Thurston County prosecuting attorney could move for another sentencing hearing.