Jan. 27

High Court Lifts Stay In Execution


The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday lifted a stay of execution for serial
killer Michael Ross.

The decision, on a 5-4 vote, does not affect a 10-day restraining order
issued on Wednesday by a federal judge, but brings Ross another step
closer to becoming the first person executed in New England in 45 years.

The action was opposed by the court's more liberal members -- Justices
John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen
Breyer.

The decision was made without comment.

Chief Public Defender Gerard Smyth said the ruling ends his office's
attempts to block the execution.

"There will be no hearing on his mental competency," Smyth said. "It
appears he will be executed without anyone hearing all the evidence that
we have that he is mentally incompetent."

The Department of Correction scrapped plans to execute Ross by lethal
injection at 2:01 a.m. Friday after postponing the execution twice this
week. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals scheduled a hearing for 10:30
a.m. Friday to review the restraining order issued Thursday by U.S.
District Judge Robert Chatigny. But a clerk at the court said that could
change depending on the actions of the U.S. Supreme Court.

"A new date for the execution may be set later today depending on a ruling
anticipated from the United States Supreme Court on an earlier stay,"
Department of Correction spokesman Brian Garnett said Thursday.

Judges planned to review the Supreme Court decision Thursday afternoon and
decide whether to hold the Friday morning hearing, a clerk said. They had
not received the decision by 3:30 p.m.

Robert Nave, head of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty,
criticized the decision.

"I'm mildly surprised and deeply disappointed the Supreme Court wouldn't
give time because there is no rush after 20 years," he said. "There's no
reason why we couldn't take some time to give a close examination of the
law."

The group will now pin its hopes on Chatigny's temporary restraining
order. "That could stop the state murder," he said. "We're hopeful that
will stand."

Smyth said he was disappointed that a competency hearing would not be
held.

"What would be the harm in postponing this for a reasonable period of time
to hold a hearing and determine his mental competency?"

Ross is on death row for strangling 4 young women and girls in eastern
Connecticut in the early 1980s. He also has admitted murdering 4 other
young women in Connecticut and New York. He raped most of the victims.

(source: Associated Press)

****************

Ross Execution Delayed Again


The execution of Michael Ross will not take place at 2 a.m. Friday as
scheduled, because a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge
barring his execution will still be in force.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal today is filing a motion to vacate the
order in the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, but that appeals court
will not hear arguments on the matter until 10:30 a.m. Friday. That means
the restraining order remains in full force beyond the time of the
scheduled execution.

Department of Correction spokesman Brian Garnett would not comment on this
latest development, noting that corrections officials are scheduled to
meet at noon to reassess. State Correction Commissioner Theresa Lantz has
twice postponed the execution by one day, but cannot reschedule it more
than five days beyond the original execution date set by Superior Court
Judge Patrick Clifford. That date was Jan. 26.

Prosecutors, public defenders and others are still waiting word from the
U.S. Supreme Court on whether the justices will vacate or affirm the stay
of execution issued Tuesday by Chief U.S. District Judge Robert N.
Chatigny, in an action brought by the public defenders -- Ross' former
lawyers -- seeking to intervene on his behalf.

The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday denied the emergency stay of Ross'
execution sought by the Missionary of Connecticut, a division of the
United Church of Christ.

The society had asked the high court for an emergency stay of the
execution pending its filing of a writ asking the court to review
dismissal by the state Supreme Court of its challenge to the execution.

The society had petitioned the Board of Paroles and Pardons for a
commutation hearing in the Ross case, based on its longstanding opposition
to the death penalty. Board Chairman Gregory Everett denied it, saying the
board would grant hearings only at the request of the condemned convict or
his lawyer.

The society appealed, claiming constitutional due process violations
because the board has no written policies governing petitions and hearings
to commute a death sentence to life in prison.

"It is fundamentally unfair for the board to claim that the Missionary
Society is not an appropriate party to request a commutation hearing in
the face of the board's dereliction of its clear duty to specify who is an
appropriate party," attorney James Wade wrote.

(source: Hartford Courant)

I heard on the news today that his excecution is now schedule for Saturday (tomorrow).
http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102832

Yes it is the stay has been lifted and barring any last minute stays it will go through at 2:01am Saturday morning.

Conn is bound and determined to carry through with this execution.

softie

This is very sad. When will it stop? He and his family will be in my prayers.

As always...sad, upsetting and uncivilised.

This is devestating. Capital Punishment is nothing but revenge. Ironically, most of the states that persue capital punishment, their murder rate has risen, defeating the supposed purpose of Capital Punishment in the first place.

High Court Clears Way for Conn. Execution

By PAT EATON-ROBB, Associated Press Writer

SOMERS, Conn. - The Supreme Court lifted an order blocking Connecticut from putting a serial killer to death, clearing the way Friday for New England's first execution in 45 years as it rejected pleas by the man's father to spare his life.

Michael Ross, 45, is on death row for the murders of four women and is scheduled for execution early Saturday. He decided last year to drop all appeals and die by injection, but his father and public defenders had waged their own battles to save his life and won a delay earlier this week, arguing that he was not mentally competent to decide his fate.

Death penalty opponents have warned that an execution in liberal New England could have a domino effect across the region and make it easier for other states to put criminals to death.

Part of me says it's a one-time thing, and we're not Texas," said Robert Nave, head of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty. "However, I continue to think this will leave a psychic imprint on the collective psyche that says this wasn't so bad."

Earlier Friday, a federal appeals court said it would give Ross' father until at least Sunday to make his case before the U.S. Supreme Court (news (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/ap/ap_on_re_us/connecticut_execution/14132569/*http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news?fr=news-storylinks&p=%22U.S.%20Supreme%20Court%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw) - web sites (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/ap/ap_on_re_us/connecticut_execution/14132569/*http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=web-storylinks&p=U.S.%20Supreme%20Court)). But Attorney General Richard Blumenthal asked the Supreme Court to allow the execution to go ahead as planned early Saturday, and the high court agreed.

There certainly is no spirit of celebration or joy, simply a sense that the justice system is moving forward," Blumenthal said late Friday.

Protesters planned to march by the hundreds to a point near the prison.

Antonio Ponvert III, the attorney for Ross' father, said he was "appalled at the conduct of our state officials who, if they actually believe in the sanctity of human life and the value of our families, should have had the decency to wait a mere matter of days to determine the constitutionality of this state-assisted suicide."

Ross, who is to be executed at Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers, Conn., has confessed to killing eight women in all.

Of the six New England states, only Connecticut and New Hampshire have the death penalty.

New Hampshire has not executed anyone since 1939 and has no one on death row. Seven inmates are waiting to die in Connecticut, which conducted New England's last execution in 1960.

Associated Press Writer John Christoffersen contributed to this report from New York.

ugh

Death is not the answer.........I agree it IS revenge. His death will not bring the others back ...sad...

Was just watching NECN news... the execution was cancelled approximately one hour before it was to take place; however, it has been rescheduled for Monday, Jan. 31 at 9 p.m. (the order for execution runsout on Monday at 11:59 p.m.)

Ross's lawyer said he has a "conflict of interest" and refused to elaborate.

From AP: " T.R. Paulding, hired by Ross last year to help expedite his execution, said his client did not request the postponement."

Part of me says it's a one-time thing, and we're not Texas," said Robert Nave, head of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty. "However, I continue to think this will leave a psychic imprint on the collective psyche that says this wasn't so bad."

A one time thing - not Texas - One exection is one too many. This makes me sick. Does it mean that only one person is going to drop their appeals - dont they realise it is fast becoming a trend - the people are so eager to get off death row they are prepared to kill themselves just to do it!!! The inmates call it freedom. As a matter of interest - to those who want this revenge - does a person giving up their appeals and allowing the state to kill them without a fight give them the same sense of revenge as it would had they have fought it to the bitter end? Or is it just a case of "he/she is dead, it's over".

January 29, 2005

Killer's Execution Is Delayed Despite Supreme Court Ruling

By JAMES BARRON and STACEY STOWE

The United States Supreme Court turned down two last-minute moves yesterday to postpone Connecticut's execution of a convicted serial killer, clearing the way for the first execution in New England in 45 years, but it was delayed again this morning with little more than an hour to spare.

Michael Bruce Ross had been scheduled to die at 2:01 a.m. today, but shortly before 1 a.m. state officials postponed the lethal injection until 9 p.m. Monday, after a question was raised about Mr. Ross's legal representation.

One of Mr. Ross's lawyers, T. R. Paulding, said early this morning that "a question has been raised about a conflict of interest about my continued representation of Michael Ross. I feel it is imperative to address this before his execution can proceed."

Mr. Paulding had insisted that Mr. Ross was sincere in his wish to die and mentally competent to make the decision to stop the appeals. Opponents of the execution have said that Mr. Ross is simply masking a desire to commit suicide.

Mr. Ross had been awaiting death inside a prison on a snowy plain about a mile from the Massachusetts border in Somers, Conn.

Mr. Ross - who would be the 74th inmate to die since Connecticut adopted capital punishment in 1893 - spent the day near the death chamber as lawyers made arguments in Manhattan and filed briefs in Washington.

As word of the Supreme Court's decision spread, protesters made plans to march from a parking lot to a driveway leading to the building in which Mr. Ross waited to die. Their two-mile march on the bleak ribbon of roads that threads through the countryside came on a night when the temperature was barely above zero.

Mr. Ross, 45, a Cornell University graduate and former life insurance salesman who grew up on an egg farm in Brooklyn, Conn., has admitted to killing eight girls and young women in the early 1980's and raping most of his victims before he murdered them. He was first convicted in 1987 and sentenced to death for four of the killings.

He is one of seven people on death row in Connecticut. No one has been executed there since 1960, when Joseph Taborsky was electrocuted for a string of robberies and murders. New Hampshire, the only other New England state that has capital punishment, has not executed anyone since 1939.

Mr. Ross did not fight the state's execution plans. He has said repeatedly that he is prepared to die - that he hoped his death would ease the pain of his victims' relatives - and he repeatedly waived his rights to appeal as he cooperated with the preparations for his execution. But that did not stop legal efforts to block the state from injecting lethal chemicals into his bloodstream.

His undisputed guilt left death penalty opponents with little leverage to use his case to pressure lawmakers to repeal Connecticut's death penalty statute, and last month, Gov. M. Jodi Rell promised to veto any such measure. A Quinnipiac University poll this month showed that 70 percent of those questioned supported executing Mr. Ross, while only 59 percent supported the death penalty in general.

The Supreme Court granted a petition from Connecticut's attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, who asked that a stay of execution be lifted. That stay had been granted earlier in the day by a three-judge federal appeals panel in Manhattan, and for hours it appeared that that the state would have to wait until at least tomorrow to carry out its death warrant.

But as Mr. Blumenthal pressed for the execution to go forward, correction officials began the final preparations to end Mr. Ross's life. Protesters began gathering outside the prison while witnesses and reporters waited for word from Washington.

It came shortly before 10 p.m.

Not only did the Supreme Court side with Mr. Blumenthal, it turned down a separate plea from Mr. Ross's father, Daniel Ross. He asserted that executing Michael Ross would violate a father's constitutional right to a relationship with his son.

The Supreme Court did not issue any comment about how the two orders were decided. Following standard practice, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was responsible for marshaling the other justices, since she handles cases from the Second Circuit. The justices do not have to convene at the court, but can communicate with each other through their law clerks, who remain in their chambers.

As officials waited into the evening for word from the Supreme Court, officials set up two areas outside the prison where Mr. Ross was scheduled to die: one for supporters of the death penalty, the other for opponents. Each area had its own heated trailer, with hot chocolate and water.

Inside, where Mr. Ross had been the only inmate on his tier, a telephone line waited in case anyone with the power to stop the execution should call. Mr. Ross - who in his years as an inmate had been cited twice for fighting and once for having contraband - was allowed to choose four witnesses. The commissioner of correction, Theresa Lantz, chose 12. Five news media witnesses were to be driven to the prison after boarding a bus elsewhere.

Officials said they would keep the identity of Mr. Ross's executioner secret. The grim preparations came after a day of legal maneuvering that initially focused on a brief that the lawyer for Daniel Ross, Antonio Ponvert III, acknowledged writing in the hours before dawn on Thursday.

But the judges on the appeals court panel, Robert D. Sack, Robert A. Katzmann and Peter W. Hall, said that they found no case law to support his claim that the execution would deny Daniel Ross the constitutional right to a relationship with his son.

Mr. Blumenthal argued the case in person, urging the appeals court to bring it to a close. "The point is there must be finality for the credibility of the criminal justice system," he said.

He noted that the Connecticut Supreme Court had already cleared the way for the execution, and said that the late-hour challenges were based on arguments that had repeatedly been rejected by Connecticut courts.

But the appeals court judges were clearly worried by a letter that Mr. Ponvert brought to the hearing. That letter, from another Connecticut inmate who said he knew Michael Ross, suggested that Mr. Ross might have been coerced into deciding he was ready to die.

The inmate, Ramon A. Lopez, said he remembered talking with Mr. Ross "through the air vents" in prison.

Repeatedly misspelling Mr. Ross's first name - Mr. Lopez put the e before the a - Mr. Lopez explained that he had been looking for legal advice on his own case. "In the midst of the conversation," he wrote, "I recall Micheal Ross telling that he did not want to die."

Mr. Lopez went on to accuse a psychologist and a mental-health worker in the prison system of brainwashing Mr. Ross.

A spokesman for the Department of Correction did not return a call yesterday seeking information about the two men.

Mr. Blumenthal, the attorney general, wasted no time in going to the Supreme Court. He filed a 27-page brief less than three hours after the appeals court issued its ruling in Manhattan.

Mr. Ponvert and Jim Nugent, the Connecticut lawyers for Mr. Ross's father, later filed two separate appeals to the Supreme Court. In one, they challenged Mr. Blumenthal's move to eliminate the 24-hour postponement. In the other, they asked for time to hold a full-scale competency hearing for Mr. Ross.

Mr. Blumenthal answered with 26 additional pages of briefs.

Mr. Ross said he committed his crimes because he suffers from sexual sadism, which drives him to commit violent sexual acts. In prison he took several medications, including medication for depression and anxiety, as well as a drug that lowers his testosterone level.

After the State Supreme Court upheld his most recent appeal of his death sentence, in May, Mr. Ross dismissed his public defenders. In October, he told Judge Patrick Clifford of Superior Court in New London that he did not want to pursue further appeals.

Judge Clifford set the execution date.

But that was not the end of Mr. Ross's case. In December, public defenders and people not connected to the case filed a furious set of appeals to prevent the execution, based mostly on claims that Mr. Ross was mentally incompetent to make a rational decision to forgo appeals.

Julia Preston contributed reporting for this article.

I recieved this message earlier.

softie

Greetings all,

Just off the phone with Robert Nave, Director of the Connecticut
Network to Abolish the Death Penalty. Robert affirms the below
message and states that it is expected that the Monday date will also
not hold. But on this rollar coaster, who knows?

In any case, at 2am EST, Michael Ross is still alive and there will be
no killing in CT this weekend.

From Austin Texas, in peace,

--abe


The execution of Michael Ross (CT volunteer) has been postponed to 9:00
p.m. on Monday, January 31st because of a possible conflict of interest
that has developed between him & his counsel.



Ronald Gold

Senior Assistant Public Defender

Capital Defense & Trial Services Unit

Office of the Chief Public Defender

Lets hope that it does not hold up - but then again - I have been asking myself the question - what if this man really does want to die? I know it is really stupid to think this way, but there are those that do. Do we the public have the right to step in and say no dont do it? Look how these people live. What quality of life do they really have? Sorry this is just me contradicting myself again. But...

I am still hoping the judicial murder is stopped permanently.
May sound stupid but to me there is a huge difference between somebody comitting suicide and the state commiting homicide.

Lawyer Calls Off Execution
January 29, 2005
By LYNNE TUOHY, ALAINE GRIFFIN, JEFFREY B. COHEN, And MATTHEW KAUFFMAN Courant Staff Writers

SOMERS -- In a stunning turnaround of events and attitudes, serial killer Michael Ross' lawyer T.R. Paulding called off today's scheduled execution of Ross barely an hour before it was to take place.

Paulding, who has represented Ross since September, cited a "potential conflict of interest" in his continued representation. Correction officials rescheduled the execution for 9 p.m. Monday, and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said he was braced for a weekend filled with legal action.

In death cases, courts make accommodations.

While he did not explain his abrupt action, it is almost certain it stems from a bizarre telephone conference call he had Friday afternoon with Chief U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny and lawyers who had sought to halt the execution.

Chatigny sharply questioned Paulding's representation and even threatened to go after Paulding's law license if Ross died and further investigation showed Ross had suffered abusive death row living conditions that led to despair and his decision to choose death over life.

Chief State's Attorney Christopher Morano said, "I would like to say at this point that my deepest sympathies and heart go out to the victims' families."

Joan Stavinsky, the mother of Robin Stavinsky, called the turn of events "unbelievable."

"I'm numb," she said. "This is just more of what we went through the entire week. How many disappointments can any of the families tolerate?"

Suspicions were raised when it was announced shortly before midnight that the top state officials involved in the execution process would soon appear at the Carl Robinson Correctional Institution. They were a half-hour late, and at that point should have been at the prison preparing for the execution. The announcement was made at 12:45 a.m. The execution was scheduled for 2:01 a.m.

The legal battles to halt the execution had been waged and lost. Only the tension and uncertainty remained. Ross at any time during the remaining two hours could have said, "Stop." He has enough appeals remaining to stretch his life out a decade.

That his private lawyer had been pressured by a federal judge nine hours earlier to persuade Ross to change his mind added an element of suspense that was not there when Friday dawned. Since his execution date was set Oct. 6, Ross has remained resolute, even through the anxiety and anger of three postponements this week.

The temperature had dropped below zero. Death penalty opponents were bracing to leave their vigil at Somers Congregational Church and begin their long, somber march up Route 220 to Bilton Road and the driveway to the Osborn Correctional Institution, where the death chamber is. That was as close as they would be allowed to get, but it was closer than the parking lot a half-mile away where they would have been restricted if they had not sued.

"We need to acknowledge the bitterness we coldly feel in the bottoms of our hearts over the execution about to take place in our name," said the Rev. Stephen Sidorak, executive director of the Christian Conference of Connecticut. He told the gathering the execution was "tantamount to an act of state-assisted suicide, casting Connecticut in a Kevorkian-like starring role."

Connecticut reached this moment after a pitched legal battle that spanned eight weeks and more than two dozen hearings and petitions for stays of the execution.

These ended minutes before 10 p.m., when the U.S. Supreme Court tacitly denied the last appeal for time and vacated the last stay of execution.

Some of the state's top officials were slated to come to a media compound at Carl Robinson Correctional Institution at midnight. They didn't show, fueling more speculation. Some officials involved in preparing for this moment admitted, privately, to qualms and misgivings.

Ross, 45, is a compulsive planner. Originally scheduled to die at 2:01 a.m. Wednesday, Ross had his visiting schedule chock full and his three witnesses lined up. Sister Helen Prejean - author of the book-turned-movie "Dead Man Walking" and the recently released "Death of Innocents" - was scheduled to be among his witnesses. But she could not hang in through three postponements. She was scheduled to the max with book tours and lectures.

Another witness, writer Martha Elliot, and two other close friends had to fly back to the West Coast. Elliot flew back Friday.

Ross' visiting schedule suffered major disruptions as well. Paulding found himself at the prison even more often than he had been going, to fill in the gaps. "I don't want him to be alone," Paulding said.

Families of the victims had little time to prepare, the tension for them cutting an even deeper well of grief. Their minds were on the loved ones they lost - kidnapped, killed, most of them raped - two decades ago.

Robin Stavinsky, 19. Wendy Baribeault, 17. Leslie Shelley, 14. April Brunais, 14.

Those are the four for whom Ross received death sentences, most recently in May 2000. He has admitted to killing four other women - two in New York and two in Connecticut.

Several dozen protesters dressed in layers of clothing began gathering shortly after midnight in a parking lot off Route 220, huddling first in their cars to keep warm before their planned march to the prison.

On the hood of Bonnie Serignese's car, two candles burned for "faith and hope," she said. Serignese was there to speak against the execution with her 63-year-old mother, Dolores Shover, of Enfield.

"We don't believe in the death penalty," said Serignese, 39, also of Enfield. "My mother told me stories about the last execution in Connecticut. She remembers how the lights actually dimmed in Manchester."

Earlier in the day, Paulding was put on notice that his representation of Ross would be scrutinized.

Chatigny, who issued both stays of execution that were later vacated by federal appeals courts, initiated a telephone conference at 3 p.m. Friday with Paulding and several of the attorneys who have waged lawsuits to halt the execution.

Chatigny was particularly concerned by information supplied by attorney Hubert Santos that former corrections deputy commissioner John Tokarz, who had worked the death row block at Northern Correctional Institution, was convinced Ross was acting out of despair as a result of the harsh conditions under which he lived.

During the 55-minute phone conference, Chatigny threatened to take Paulding's law license if evidence later surfaced that would have been exposed in the competency hearing Chatigny tried in vain to hold.

Chatigny did not so much plead with Paulding as berate him, cautioning him to be certain that advocating Ross' right to die isn't "the biggest mistake of [his] life."

"What you are doing is terribly, terribly wrong," Chatigny told Paulding. "No matter how well motivated you are, you have a client whose competence is in serious doubt and you don't know what you're talking about."

State court judges and the state's highest court have affirmed Ross' mental competence to waive appeals still open to him and "volunteer" to be executed. U.S. District Judge Christopher F. Droney - Chatigny's peer - also found Ross to be clearly competent in rejecting a challenge to lethal injection brought by Ross' father, Dan Ross.

Chatigny is the only judge who had serious concerns about Ross' competence and the fact that no one analyzed the possible effects of highly restrictive housing on his desire to die.

"I see this happening and I can't live with it myself, which is why I'm on the phone right now. It's wrong. What you're doing is wrong," Chatigny told Paulding.

Paulding barely got a word in edgewise. At the close of the conversation, he told Chatigny he would give serious consideration to the judge's words.

Chatigny's chambers remained staffed well into the night, presumably prepared to act once again to stay the execution.

The conference call - which included eight lawyers representing the attorney general, the chief state's attorney, the public defenders office and Ross's father - came after courts twice rebuffed Chatigny's rulings halting Ross' execution.

Chatigny made a point of saying, during a hearing earlier this week, that he had toured death row while litigating another inmate's challenge, and found the living conditions to be deeply disturbing.

Ross has been confined since his arrest in June 1984. He was sent to death row in 1987.

"I believe that as an officer of the court who is facilitating the execution of his client, I as the chief judge of the court have to be sure that you are doing everything that one should do ethically in this situation," Chatigny said.

Chatigny said he has read extensively on the psychiatric effects of prison isolation and questioned whether Paulding had taken seriously the claims of a psychiatrist that Ross's solitary confinement had made him desperate to die. He also said Ross's sexual sadism and other mental illnesses - as well as multiple attempts to kill himself - raise questions about whether he is suicidal now.

"You've put yourself in a pretty bad place, Mr. Paulding," Chatigny said. "And I would urge you to say, `Michael, I can bring you in off the limb that we're both out on. I can bring you in."

Paulding was at the prison while the conference call was taking place, using an office corrections officials had provided.

Meanwhile, outside the prison, opposition to the execution began quietly.

Renny Cushing, executive director of the Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights, emerged from a cordial meeting with state correction officials at which they discussed final plans for a protest they planned that would begin at a church in Somers and make its way to the prison.

Cushing said he was there on behalf of the victims who Cushing said often get lost when the killer becomes a sort-of "icon" in the media.

"They become an after-thought," Cushing said.

These are cut and pastes from the previous post -

"And further investigation showed Ross had suffered abusive death row living conditions that led to despair and his decision to choose death over life. Chatigny was particularly concerned by information supplied by attorney Hubert Santos that former corrections deputy commissioner John Tokarz, who had worked the death row block at Northern Correctional Institution, was convinced Ross was acting out of despair as a result of the harsh conditions under which he lived.Chatigny made a point of saying, during a hearing earlier this week, that he had toured death row while litigating another inmate's challenge, and found the living conditions to be deeply disturbing."

This is why so many people prefer to die than to live like this. Ever since a friend of mine wrote me and told me why he is deciding to rather be executed in March rather than live, it has given me a new view point on "giving up appeals". I know i contradict myself sometimes and i so much want these people to live, sometimes my compassion for them and their decisions they make about their own lives, get the better of my judgement. Lets face it, the conditions that these men live in are appauling and in all honesty, I would not want to live like that. If only those watching over these people would realise that until the end, these people are human and deserve compassion until the very end. Maybe more of the people giving up appeals would think twice.

I know that suicide or homicide, either way it's wrong, but sometimes I just think about what I would do.

I edit a small alternative publication. Michael Ross submitted a few articles to us several years ago, which we published. He discussed in detail the mental illness that he suffered that compelled him to commit his violent crimes. At the same time, he took responsibility for his action.

His was a very sad story, told very well by an accomplished writer.

I do not believe that executing him will serve any useful purpose.

Michael Ross wants to die. I think that he feels that death will end his pain. He is wrong. Dead people don't feel relief from pain. You have to be alive to experience relief.

It is not the government's place to participate in suicide. In fact, it is illegal to help people commit suicide. Jack Kavorkian knows all about that.

It should not be the government's place to commit homicide.

The death penalty is barbaric and has no place in a civilized society.

If we are one.

alice

I am surprised but glad. If you saw this on 60 minutes, his lawyer seemed "torn" about what he was doing in the first place.

But if anybody wishes to die, should that not be excepted also?

January 30, 2005

Conference Call With Judge Preceded Delay in Execution

By JAMES BARRON and STACEY STOWE

The execution of Michael Bruce Ross, the convicted serial killer who was scheduled to be the first person put to death in Connecticut in 45 years, was delayed hours after a conference call in which a federal judge criticized his lawyer's handling of the case.

The lawyer, T. R. Paulding, announced early yesterday - little more than an hour before Mr. Ross had been scheduled to die - that "a question has been raised about a conflict of interest" that touched on his continued representation of Mr. Ross.

Standing outside the prison in Somers, Conn., where Mr. Ross had spent the day in a small cell next to the death chamber, Mr. Paulding did not explain what the conflict was, saying only, "I feel it is imperative to address this before his execution can proceed."

By then, the United States Supreme Court had turned down two last-minute moves to postpone the execution of Mr. Ross, a former life insurance salesman who would be the 74th inmate to die since Connecticut adopted capital punishment in 1893.

State officials said they would postpone the lethal injection until 9 p.m. Monday. The death warrant for Mr. Ross is not valid after midnight Monday.

Yesterday, though, the Connecticut's attorney general suggested that Mr. Paulding's conflict could mean that Mr. Ross no longer had a lawyer and that without a lawyer, he could not be put to death.

"He must be represented by counsel," the attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, said in an interview. "We've said to all courts, we respect his right to counsel."

Mr. Paulding, 49, would not elaborate as he emerged from his split-level house in Glastonbury, Conn., yesterday, unshaven and red-eyed. As he climbed into a van with his wife, Michele, at the wheel, he said that he would see Mr. Ross later in the day. "It may be resolved after that," he said.

Another lawyer involved in the case, Antonio Ponvert III, who represents Mr. Ross's father, said Mr. Paulding had spent hours talking to Mr. Ross at the prison on Friday afternoon and evening "about the need to have someone take an objective look at Mr. Ross's mental state, but he was unsuccessful." Mr. Paulding then told corrections officials that he had "serious conflict of interest issues" and that he could no longer be an advocate on Mr. Ross's behalf for the execution, Mr. Ponvert said.

Mr. Ross, 45, has repeatedly expressed his willingness to die. He admitted to killing eight girls and young women in the early 1980's and raping most of his victims before he murdered them. He was first convicted in 1987 and sentenced to death for four of the killings.

He is one of seven people on death row in Connecticut. No one has been executed there since 1960, when Joseph Taborsky was electrocuted for a string of robberies and murders. New Hampshire, the only other New England state that has capital punishment, has not executed anyone since 1939.

The delay in the execution and Mr. Paulding's statement at the prison came hours after he took part in a conference call with Judge Robert N. Chatigny, the chief federal judge in Connecticut. Lawyers representing Mr. Ross's father, Dan Ross, and public defenders who had represented Mr. Ross in the past listened in.

The judge told Mr. Paulding, who has been working with Mr. Ross in an effort to forgo all appeals, that "you are way out on a limb." The judge also threatened to have Mr. Paulding's law license revoked if it turned out that his advice to Mr. Ross had been incomplete or inappropriate.

The judge said he was troubled by a letter from an inmate, Ramon A. Lopez, who said Mr. Ross had told him "through the air vents" between their prison cells prison "that he did not want to die." Mr. Lopez went on to accuse a psychologist and a mental-health worker in the prison system of brainwashing Mr. Ross. (A spokesman for the Department of Correction did not return a call on Friday seeking information about the two men.)

In the telephone call, Judge Chatigny said he was also concerned that a move from one prison to another had affected Mr. Ross.

In the conference call, the judge addressed Mr. Paulding in blistering language, saying that when he was in practice as a litigator, "My investigation in a typical run-of-the-mill injury case would be more comprehensive than your investigation of this."

Noting that Mr. Paulding had not questioned Mr. Lopez about his allegations, the judge said, "If I were you, before I continued to play this decisive role, I would want to interview Mr. Lopez myself."

Mr. Lopez, 27, was sentenced in 2003 to a 17 years on an assault conviction. His handwritten letter to the judge was dated Monday. A date stamp showed it had been received in Judge Chatigny's chambers in Hartford on Thursday morning. The three pages were filled with misspellings- with Mr. Ross's first name sometimes as "Micheal," - and capricious punctuation. One of the other lawyers listening to the conference call, Hubert Santos, who represented the public defenders, mentioned a statement from John Tokarz, a retired deputy prison warden who said that Mr. Ross's willingness to die might have been fueled by harsh conditions on death row.

The mention of other information about Mr. Ross that Mr. Paulding had not verified appeared to anger the judge. Referring to the Tokarz statement, the judge said, "It makes my blood pressure climb even higher, because obviously now it's not just inmate Lopez" who was questioning Mr. Ross's desire to go through with the execution.

Lecturing Mr. Paulding, the judge said, "You better be prepared to live with yourself for the rest of your life."

Mr. Paulding had insisted that Mr. Ross was sincere in his wish to die and mentally competent to make the decision to stop the appeals. Opponents of the execution have said that Mr. Ross is simply masking a desire to commit suicide.

As the conference call went on, Mr. Ross was awaiting death inside the prison, about a mile from the Massachusetts border, and Mr. Blumenthal, the attorney general, was petitioning the United States Supreme Court to lift a stay of execution. That stay had been granted earlier on Friday by a three-judge federal appeals panel in Manhattan, and appeared to mean the state would have to delay carrying out the death warrant.

Not only did the Supreme Court side with Mr. Blumenthal, it turned down a separate plea from Mr. Ross's father. He asserted that executing Michael Ross would violate his constitutional right to a relationship with his son.

The Supreme Court did not issue any comment about how the two orders were decided. Following standard practice, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was responsible for marshaling the other justices, since she handles cases from the Second Circuit. The justices do not have to convene at the court, but can communicate with each other through their law clerks, who remain in their chambers.

As Mr. Paulding noted in the conference call, Mr. Ross has said that he hoped his death would ease the pain of his victims' relatives and he repeatedly waived his rights to appeal as he cooperated with the preparations for his execution. But that did not stop legal efforts to block the state from injecting lethal chemicals into his bloodstream.

You know - seriously i find this amazing the Judge says "you better be able to live with yourself for the rest of your life". What about those that are executed, whose death warrants are signed and that dont want to die??? Do those who allow these executions to go through get told the same thing.

Do the people in Texas and other States who give up their appeals and become volunteers to "commit suicide" because of what they endure and suffer and the hell they live have lawyers that get told the same thing. As far as i am concerned, the lawyer is only doing his job. As much as I hate to say this i kind of feel sorry for Ross's lawyer.

As of Sunday night the execution was set for Monday (today) at 9pm. As of this mornining the execution is postponed again.

anuary 31, 2005

Connecticut Set to Execute Serial Killer on Monday

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 8:28 a.m. ET

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) -- An attorney for the serial killer who has tried to speed his own execution will now seek a delay so that a hearing can examine his mental competence, according to a published report.

Michael Ross' attorney, T. R. Paulding, planned to file court papers Monday that could prompt a hearing to resolve questions about Ross' competence. The execution, scheduled for Monday night, would be the first in New England in 45 years.

``We will seek a full, fair and complete assessment of all the evidence relative to his competence,'' Paulding told The Hartford Courant. ``Mr. Ross has authorized me to take the steps that make that happen.''

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Monday he had expected some sort of action would be taken that could delay the execution.

``We have received no formal notification, but there are reports that Michael Ross will request some proceeding and the law clearly and absolutely requires that such a request be met,'' Blumenthal said.

Ross, a 45-year-old Cornell University graduate, has confessed to eight murders in eastern Connecticut and New York in the early 1980s. He has said he wants to die to end the pain for the families of his victims.

Ross had been scheduled to receive a lethal injection Saturday, but Paulding asked for a delay so he could explore a possible conflict of interest.

Paulding said Sunday that he has no plans to stop representing Ross, a decision that state officials had said would keep Ross on track to be put to death Monday night.

``I have no intention of leaving the case,'' Paulding said in a brief interview Sunday with The Associated Press. ``I'm still working on what to do.'' Paulding said he planned to update the public Monday morning.

Meanwhile, a lawyer for Ross' father said he may file another appeal Monday.

``We're going to work up until the last minute,'' said Antonio Ponvert III, an attorney representing Ross' father, Dan Ross.

Paulding, who was hired to help Ross end his appeals and accept the death penalty, asked that the execution be delayed Saturday morning after U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny accused him of not adequately investigating claims that Ross was mentally incompetent to make the decision to die.

Chatigny castigated Paulding for not investigating new evidence in the case. The evidence, including accounts from another inmate and a retired deputy warden, have indicated that deplorable conditions on death row may have influenced Ross' decision.

``I see this happening and I can't live with it myself,'' Chatigny said in a telephone conference with Paulding, according to court records. ``What you are doing is terribly, terribly wrong.''

FYI: the radio news is reporting it as postponed. (11am)

January 31, 2005

Connecticut Set to Execute Serial Killer on Monday

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 3:06 p.m. ET

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- State officials canceled plans Monday to execute a serial killer after new evidence emerged that his attorney said raises questions about his mental competency.

Michael Ross had been scheduled to become the first person in 45 years to be executed in New England.

The execution was first scheduled for Wednesday and was postponed three times as new court challenges emerged. It was set for 9 p.m. Monday before being canceled.

Ross, a 45-year-old Cornell University graduate, has confessed to eight murders in Connecticut and New York in the early 1980s. He has said he wants to die to end the pain for the families of his victims.

But the attorney hired by Ross to expedite his execution now says the new evidence raises questions about his competency to ``volunteer'' to be executed.

``On Friday, new information was revealed to me that made me question Mr. Ross' competency,'' attorney T. R. Paulding said in a motion. ``The last 48 hours have reinforced my belief that the execution of Michael Ross should be delayed to determine whether he is competent. New and significant evidence has come to light that I simply cannot ignore.''

Chief State's Attorney Christopher Morano also filed a motion with the state Supreme Court to halt the execution. It is unknown when the issues surrounding Ross' competency will be resolved.

``He took a U-turn,'' said Christopher Morano, the Chief State's Attorney. ``And that is why we are doing what we are doing today.''

Officials will now have to go back before a state judge and obtain a new death warrant.

Ross was about an hour from execution Saturday morning when Paulding announced he had requested a postponement of the lethal injection. The decision came after U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny accused Paulding of not adequately investigating new evidence in the case.

``I see this happening and I can't live with it myself,'' Chatigny said in a telephone conference with Paulding, according to court records. ``What you are doing is terribly, terribly wrong. No matter how well motivated you are, you have a client whose competence is in serious doubt and you don't know what you're talking about.''

Paulding said he is persuaded of the need to explore a phenomenon known as ``death row syndrome.'' Public defenders have argued that years of harsh conditions on death row have in effect coerced Ross to drop his appeals.

February 1, 2005

Connecticut Delays Death of Serial Killer Indefinitely

By WILLIAM YARDLEY and STACEY STOWE

HARTFORD, Jan. 31 - Connecticut delayed the execution of a convicted serial killer indefinitely on Monday after his lawyer filed motions in state and federal courts contending that he might have a death row syndrome that overwhelmed his will to live and left him incompetent.

The delay reflected a dramatic turnabout for the inmate, Michael Bruce Ross, who was just an hour away from being executed by lethal injection just after midnight Saturday and would have been the first person to be put to death in New England in 45 years.

Mr. Ross has long said he was willing to die for his crimes. First arrested in 1984, he eventually confessed to killing eight girls and young women and raping most of them. He was sentenced to death for four of the murders. He and his lawyer, T. R. Paulding, have insisted in every court they entered that Mr. Ross was mentally competent to forgo further appeals of his death sentence.

But Mr. Paulding issued a statement Monday saying "new and significant evidence has come to light that I simply cannot ignore." The motion for a stay and a similar motion filed by the state were granted by the State Supreme Court. It could take months or even longer to decide whether Mr. Ross is to be executed.

The court motions Monday climaxed a series of extraordinary events in Connecticut. Over the course of a week, a federal judge delayed the execution twice and, when it appeared that the United States Supreme Court was about to remove a final hurdle to the execution, made a last-minute phone call in which he threatened to disbar Mr. Paulding, accusing him of being insufficiently suspicious of his client's willingness to die.

In the end, the judge, Robert N. Chatigny of United States District Court, set in motion the events that led to Mr. Paulding's request that the execution be stopped. In his motion requesting a new hearing on his client's competency, Mr. Paulding cited a letter from an inmate with whom Mr. Ross had communicated through ventilation ducts, as well as affidavits from a retired corrections official, a freelance writer from California and a forensic psychiatrist who had declared Mr. Ross competent a month earlier but now conceded that he suddenly felt less certain.

Much of the evidence centered on questions of whether Mr. Ross wanted to commit suicide through execution. Some death penalty opponents say a suicidal level of despair and depression, death row syndrome, can develop after years of confinement.

"In short," Mr. Paulding said, "we are simply following the guiding principle that 'no stone should be left unturned' before determining my client's competency."

State prosecutors reacted strongly, saying Mr. Ross had misled them regarding his competency. They vowed not to allow him so much control over his fate in the future. Some experts said the legal issues being raised were unusually uncharted, at least for a part of the country unaccustomed to the furious pace and full passions of last-minute death penalty litigation.

"It did seem the Supreme Court had shut all doors on Friday," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a group that studies the death penalty and argues that is an ineffective and inefficient form of punishment. "But it just doesn't surprise me that there are new wrinkles and that they were effective. This sounds like it may take some time to resolve."

Christopher L. Morano, the chief state's attorney, said his office would examine the various pleadings filed by Mr. Paulding, but added, "We will be seeking a new death warrant as soon as practically possible."

The old warrant expired Monday, and Mr. Morano said any new warrant would not come for at least a month and perhaps much longer. An execution could not take place until at least 30 days after a new warrant is issued, he said. "It's going to be longer than that because were not going to be so accepting of his willingness to volunteer to be executed this time," he said.

Both Mr. Morano and Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut's attorney general, said they empathized with the families of Mr. Ross's victims.

"Today they must feel like they are victimized all over again," Mr. Morano said.

Mr. Paulding submitted briefs requesting the stay in United States District Court and the State Supreme Court on Monday. The state court issued a stay in the afternoon and returned the case to Judge Patrick Clifford of Superior Court in New London, who had found Mr. Ross competent and set his original execution date, Jan. 26 at 2:01 a.m.

A clerk for Judge Clifford said nothing had been scheduled in his court as of Monday afternoon.

The change of heart by Mr. Paulding and Mr. Ross followed considerable pressure from Judge Chatigny. In a conference call on Friday, just hours before the execution was scheduled, Judge Chatigny insisted that Mr. Paulding had not treated with enough gravity a letter from an inmate, Ramon A. Lopez, who used to speak to Mr. Ross through air vents at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers.

Mr. Lopez said certain prison workers were "sociopaths in disguise" who may have "engineered" Mr. Ross's wish to die by overwhelming him with feelings of guilt.

Another lawyer participating in that call mentioned a statement by John Tokarz, a former deputy warden at Northern who supervised death row in the mid-90's . Mr. Tokarz, in an affidavit filed Friday, said "it was not unusual to hear remarks from some staff that it would be best if the death row inmate elected to take his own life."

Mr. Tokarz said that death row inmates were subject to "sensory depravation" and that these and other "conditions may have played a substantial role in Ross's decision to waive his legal remedies and elect to be executed."

Dr. Michael Norko, the forensic psychiatrist who found Mr. Ross competent last month, signed an affidavit on Sunday saying he had second thoughts after reviewing the new evidence, specifically widely circulated letters Mr. Ross wrote in 1998 and 2003 that said conditions on death row made him suicidal.

In the 1998 letter, Mr. Ross, who has publicly said he wants to be executed to ease the pain of his victims' families, said that explanation was not complete.

"The truth is I was driven more by a desire than out of some noble cause," he wrote. "However, I knew that I could not say that publicly so I denied my own desire to leave this world and played on the noble cause of protecting the families of my victims."

In addition, Mr. Ross wrote letters to a California freelance writer, Martha Elliott, saying he believed he could be suffering from death row syndrome.

Ms. Elliott, who has been writing about Mr. Ross for the past decade and is at work on a book about him, was at the prison with him on Friday evening and Saturday morning.

She said in a telephone conversation from her home in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Monday that Mr. Ross had wanted the execution to go ahead, but that when he learned that Mr. Paulding might suffer because of it, he faced a "moral conundrum."

"How could he be going to his death knowing that it was going to hurt T. R.?" Ms. Eliot said.