COURTS
Execution date of Sept. 19 set for Yates
STACEY MULICK;
The News Tribune Published: September 5th, 2008 01:44 PM | Updated: September 5th, 2008 02:32 PMA Pierce County judge signed the death warrant today and set an execution date of Sept. 19 for convicted serial killer Robert Lee Yates Jr.

A stay of execution request is to be filed today or Monday, Yates’ attorney said. Yates has until Aug. 1, 2009, to file his personal restraint petition, another level of appeal.

Yates, 56, had no reaction during the short hearing in a packed Pierce County Superior Court room. Several of the victims’ relatives were also present plus detectives and many security personnel.

A clean-shaven Yates wore an orange jail jumpsuit and had his hands shackled to his waist. Part of his escort included two state Department of Corrections officers, who stood behind Yates during the five-minutes hearing. Other corrections officers were in the gallery.

Yates said nothing during the hearing and spoke to his attorneys afterward.

A Pierce County jury convicted Yates of two counts of aggravated first-degree murder and sentenced him to death in 2002 for the slayings of Melinda Mercer and Connie LaFontaine Ellis.

He had previously pleaded guilty in Spokane County to killing 13 other people in a deal that took the death penalty off the table.

Pierce County prosecutors refused to agree to that deal and, after Yates’ guilty plea, brought him to Tacoma to be tried for Mercer’s and Ellis’ deaths.

After a jury sentenced Yates to death in 2002, Pierce County Superior Court Judge John McCarthy postponed signing the death warrant so Yates could appeal his conviction and sentence.

In an 8-1 decision, the state Supreme Court upheld Yates’ conviction and sentenced in September 2007. Yates appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to review his case.

Pierce County Superior Court Judge John McCarthy read the death warrant in court before signing it.

Yates is one of eight men on death row in Washington, according to the state Department of Corrections. Two of those men – Yates and Cecil Emile Davis – were convicted of their crimes in Pierce County. The last execution in Washington took place in 2001.