Appeals denied for two Nevada killers

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, Oct. 12, 1999 | 11:41 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court today dismissed appeals from Nevada death row inmates David Middleton and Patrick McKenna, who prison officials consider one of the most dangerous men in the state prison system.

The high court dismissed the appeals without comment. McKenna had asked that his death penalty be overturned. It was the third time the Supreme Court had denied an appeal by McKenna.

McKenna lost an appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court last year on the grounds that the heavy security in the courtroom during his penalty hearing was prejudicial to his case.

He was convicted in the 1979 strangulation of Jack Nobles, his cellmate. McKenna was in the Clark County Jail after being convicted of raping two women. Court records report that McKenna and Nobles had argued over a chess game or over sex.

Besides his death penalty, McKenna has been sentenced to three life terms for three other killings, plus 75 years for the rapes and 92 years for his role in one of his escape attempts, in which two prisoners were killed.

The nation's high court also dismissed an appeal from David Middleton, an ex-Miami police officer who sought have his death sentence overturned.

He had been convicted of the 1995 killings of two Reno-area women: schoolteacher Katherine Powell and casino worker Thelma Davila.

Prosecutors had described Middleton as a sadist who liked rough sex and argued that Middleton abducted the women from their homes and used a refrigerator with air holes to hold his victims.

He later dumped their bodies, prosecutors argued.