by peter e. bortner
The Pottsville woman who fatally stabbed a city man in March 1991 in a now-demolished hotel must remain behind bars, a three-judge state Superior Court panel has ruled.
In a nine-page opinion filed Wednesday in Pottsville, the panel ruled Lizetta L. Haynes, 51, provided no reason why a court should consider her petition, which was filed more than 20 years after her conviction for killing Joseph E. Oullette, 67.
"There is no question that Haynes's ... petition is untimely," and no exception to the timeliness requirement excuses the late filing, Judge Paula Francisco Ott wrote in the opinion.
As a result, Haynes must remain in state prison, where she is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder for stabbing Oullette. Haynes is serving her sentence at State Correctional Institution/Muncy in Lycoming County.
Pottsville police charged Haynes with stabbing Oullette, a retired cook who performed in local bars as "Tex the Rambling Cowboy," on March 24, 1991, in his room at the William Penn Hotel, after he refused to share his hot dogs and beer with her. Oullette's decomposed body was not discovered until April 27, 1991.
Haynes pleaded guilty but mentally ill to criminal homicide Nov. 6, 1991, withdrew the plea April 1, 1992, and then pleaded guilty but mentally ill again May 26, 1992.
Judge, now President Judge, William E. Baldwin accepted the plea and, after a degree of guilt hearing over which he presided without a jury, found her guilty July 20, 1992, of first-degree murder and sentenced her to life in prison, which in Pennsylvania carries no chance of parole.
Because Haynes pleaded guilty but mentally ill, she received treatment for her illness and then, when she was deemed cured, must serve the balance of her sentence in prison.
Pennsylvania and many other states enacted the guilty but mentally ill plea in the 1980s after John Hinckley Jr. was found not guilty by reason of insanity of trying to assassinate President Ronald W. Reagan in 1981.
In the opinion, Ott wrote that state law required Haynes to file her petition within one year after her sentence became final unless she can prove one of three exceptions applies: government interference with the filing of a timely appeal, new evidence or a new constitutional right.
"None of the arguments advanced by Haynes ... implicate an exception to the ... one year time-bar," Ott wrote.
Judge Mary Jane Bowes and Senior Judge William H. Platt, the other panel members, concurred in Ott's opinion.