Death row inmate is ruled able to decide on execution

Thursday, Dec. 22, 2005 | 8:13 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Death row inmate Daryl L. Mack is not mentally ill and he understands his decision to go forward with his execution, a prosecutor said.

Mack was scheduled to die Dec. 1 by lethal injection, but his mother, Viola Mack, filed a petition with the Nevada Supreme Court asking for a delay because her son's mental health needs to be fully evaluated.

The court granted a stay of execution and ordered the Washoe County district attorney's office to respond.

Mack, sentenced to death for the murder of a Reno woman, has maintained he is innocent, but says he does not want any more appeals on his behalf. He has said he is ready to die.

In an answer to the petition, Washoe Deputy District Attorney Gary H. Hatlestad said the evidence supports District Judge Robert Perry's finding that Mack was competent to waive his rights to further appeals.

The evidence shows "Mr. Mack knew and understood he was about to be executed, why he was about to be executed, that he had a right to challenge his conviction and sentence, and that Mack's decision to waive further litigation was not the product of a mental disease or defect," Hatlestad said.

Hatlestad said the mother until now "has had little or no interest in her son or her son's case."

"This lack of involvement tends to undermine her claim that she has a 'significant' relationship with her son,' " Hatlestad said in his response filed last week.

Mack, 47, was sentenced to a life term for the 1988 murder of Kim Parks in a Reno motel. But he later was tied through DNA to the 1998 killing of Betty Jane May in her southwest Reno home.

Hatlestad asked the court to reject the petition that more hearings should be conducted on Mack's mental health.

Viola Mack also complained that her son has been forced to take Haldol, a medication used to treat schizophrenia. His request to be taken off the drug was denied, and as a result, his constitutional right of privacy and liberty to reject medical treatment to determine competency has been violated, she said.

Hatlestad said Haldol has been prescribed at various times "for reasons other than to render (Mack) competent to be executed or waive further litigation: It was done to enable him to deal with his 'angst.' "

Cy Ryan can be reached at (775) 687-5032 or at cy@lasvegassun.com.