Oct. 10 MISSOURI: Missouri slows number of executions Missouri has slowed its pace of executions for inmates facing the death penalty, with the last one taking place almost a year ago. The Missouri Supreme Court has allowed 5 executions since it shifted to a majority of justices appointed by Democratic governors in February of 2002, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Sunday. The most executions that Missouri carried out in any one year was 9 in 1999. There were 6 each in 2002, 1997, 1996 and 1995; 7 in 2001; and 5 in 2000. In Missouri, the attorney general asks the court to set an execution date when all appeals courts have affirmed a death sentence. Before 2002, the Missouri Supreme Court routinely set an execution date within a few weeks of receiving an attorney general's petition, but that's no longer the case. "These cases are just languishing at the state Supreme Court," said Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon. "Never before have I been confronted by a situation in which the court refuses to act on matters of this importance. It's very difficult to explain it to the victims' families." Beth Riggert, spokeswoman for the Missouri Supreme Court, said of the petitions, "The court will take action on those motions when it deems it appropriate." St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch said the court's inaction in setting execution dates is further evidence "of 4 judges leaning strongly away from the death penalty." "You can't say they are absolutely, unequivocally opposed to the death penalty," McCulloch said. "But, in not setting execution dates, what is happening now is that justice is not being carried out." That's good news for Jeff Stack of Columbia, Mo., a death penalty opponent, who takes part in vigils outside the Potosi Correctional Center on execution nights. "I don't miss making the trips down to Potosi or watching the hearses pull out of the prison," said Stack, a leader with Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty. "There's no doubt that this is a good thing." When Gov. Bob Holden sent Judge Richard B. Teitelman to the Missouri Supreme Court in 2002, his arrival created a 4-3 majority of Democratic-appointed justices on the court. Before Holden and the late Gov. Mel Carnahan appointed justices, the majority consisted of judges appointed by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, a Republican who served as Missouri's governor from 1985 to 1993. On Sept. 20, the Democratic-appointed majority on the court grew when Holden appointed Mary Rhodes Russell, a member of the Missouri Court of Appeals in St. Louis, to replace Duane Benton, whom Ashcroft put on the court in 1991. President George W. Bush has nominated Benton to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. The case that has been waiting longest for an execution date from the court is that of Vernon Brown, one of the 56 men facing the death penalty in the state. On Feb. 25, 2002, Attorney General Jay Nixon asked the Missouri Supreme Court to set an execution date for Brown, who ran out of appeals in the murder of a 9-year-old girl in St. Louis 18 years ago. 2 years and 8 months later, Nixon still has not received a response. The petition involving Brown is the oldest of 6 requests pending before the Missouri Supreme Court. 5 of them have been before the court for at least 15 months. Missouri has put 61 murderers to death since it resumed executions in 1989, under the current federal court rules. The last to be executed at Potosi was John Clayton Smith, who was put to death on Oct. 29 for murdering two people near Canton, Mo., in 1997. Smith had refused to let lawyers delay his execution with appeals. (source: Associated Press) USA: Mo. Case Center of Death Penalty Debate 11 years later, the chilling imagery of her sister's murder still makes Pertie Mitchell shiver. During a burglary, 2 teens stretched duct tape across Shirley Crook's mouth and eyes, then muscled her into her van. An hour later, the hogtied woman was dumped off into the murky Meramec River. "Bubble, bubble," witnesses later said they heard Christopher Simmons snicker as the woman's body sank. "It makes your hands sweat, your stomach sick," Mitchell said, hoping for the day that Simmons is put to death. "I will be there. I will watch him die." The execution is not certain, though. Using the Simmons case, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether it is constitutional to execute killers who were juveniles when the crimes were committed. The court agreed to hear the case after the Missouri Supreme Court last year struck down executions of juveniles and re-sentenced Simmons, now 28, to life in prison, deciding that such executions violate "evolving standards of decency." 19 states allow executions of killers who were 16 or 17 at the time of the crime. Since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty, 22 people - 13 of them in Texas - have been executed for crimes committed as 16- or 17-year-olds. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1988 barred the death penalty for those 15 and younger. Simmons and his attorneys did not reply to interview requests. His advocates have said that executing people who kill as juveniles would be just as wrong as putting to death the mentally challenged, a practice outlawed by the Supreme Court in 2002. People less than 18 years old, they argue, don't have fully developed brains and are incapable of making rational decisions. Mitchell believes Simmons, who was then 17, was old enough to know right from wrong. "You know how many people get married or join the service when they're 17 or 18 years old?" said Mitchell, 66. "This man has nothing to justify what he did." Simmons' advocates argue that he led a tough life, from the time his parents separated. Abuse by a relative, they said, included tying him as a toddler to a tree for hours to keep him from wandering while the man fished - or taking him to a bar and plying him with alcohol for the amusement of patrons. By 13, Simmons was smoking marijuana and swilling hard liquor. He dabbled with mushrooms, cocaine and LSD, and broke into cars and homes. About 2 a.m. on Sept. 9, 1993, Simmons and Charles Benjamin, then 15, found an open window at the home of Crook, a neighbor near St. Louis. Crook was sleeping alone inside; her husband Steven - like her, a trucker - was away on the road. Simmons bound her and forced her - wearing only underwear and cowboy boots - into her van. They drove 16 miles to Castlewood State Park, led her to the middle of the trestle above the Meramec and tossed her into the water. 2 fishermen found the body 12 hours later. Authorities said Simmons privately boasted of killing Crook because she had seen his face. He was arrested the next day. "I have a picture in my mind that she can't see, she can't speak, she can't scream out," Crook's daughter, Kimberly Hawkins, said at Simmons' trial. "I can imagine the terror that she's thinking." Prosecutors called the crimes anything but impulsive. They said Simmons believed he could escape punishment because he was a juvenile. Simmons later claimed that any scheming was "just stupid talk," and he denied ever believing he could get away with it because he was a minor. He was ordered condemned in 1994. Benjamin, tried separately as an adult but not eligible for the death sentence, given his age, was convicted and sentenced to life without parole. In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Benjamin, now 26, said he hopes Simmons prevails, thinking adolescence mitigates culpability. "I believe age should factor in some way - not the death penalty," Benjamin said from prison. Crook's death, he said, is "not something that can be easily blocked out." These days, Mitchell talks of little successes, like paring to just one the number of antidepressants she still takes to deal with the crime that "never leaves you." "Can you imagine what Shirley must have been feeling, fighting for a breath of air and what her mind must have been saying to her? I think of that all the time," she said. "You'd think I'd cried enough, but it never ends." (source: Associated Press) ********************* National Anti-Death Penalty Conference One day after the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on whether a consensus has evolved against executing youthful offenders, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty will kick off its annual conference at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. NCADP 2004, scheduled for Oct. 14-17, comes at a time when doubts about the death penalty are surfacing across the nation, involving issues such as innocent people mistakenly sent to death row, faulty crime laboratory procedures, lawyer competence and even police and prosecutorial misconduct. NCADP 2004 will feature plenary sessions examining the juvenile death penalty and mental illness and the death penalty. More than two dozen workshops will address such diverse topics as family members of murder victims who oppose the death penalty; Attorney General John Ashcrofts efforts to pursue death penalty prosecutions in non-death penalty jurisdictions; and a special panel featuring several persons freed from death row due to actual innocence. In addition to 4 days of workshops, plenary sessions, artistic performances and author signings, the conference will be highlighted by a Saturday night awards dinner. Elaine Jones, former director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and a longtime lawyer in the fight against the death penalty, will receive NCADPs Lifetime Achievement Award. Abraham J. Bonowitz, a Florida activist and director of the Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, will receive the organizations Abolitionist of the Year Award. (source: Civilrights.org) LOUISIANA: 'A FORGOTTEN MAN'----Prosecutors refuse to reconsider inmate's case despite evidence supporting his claim When Ryan Matthews was cleared by DNA evidence and released from Angola's death row in June, word traveled quickly across the sprawling prison farm to the ears of another inmate, a lifer named Travis Hayes. Hayes allowed himself a big smile, a real smile, not a fake one like those meant to appease a guard or ward off a fight or look brave for his family. This time, for the first time in seven years, real joy was behind it. It was just a matter of time, he figured, before he would be taking the same walk as his co-defendant, leaving behind the concrete walls and swirls of razor wire and long days digging crop rows in the fields. After all, the exoneration of Matthews in the April 1997 killing of a Bridge City grocer shattered the only firm evidence prosecutors had on Hayes, a statement to homicide detectives in which he vaguely implicated Matthews in the killing. Now, Hayes thought, the DNA could show what his attorneys tried to prove all along: that his confession was made up, coerced in 6 hours of interrogations in which he was denied food, sleep or bathroom breaks. Transcripts of the interrogations show that for the 1st 5 hours of questioning, Hayes maintained that he and Matthews never set foot in Bridge City on the day Tommy Vanhoose was killed inside his neighborhood store, Comeaux's Grocery. But the Jefferson Parish district attorney's office snuffed out whatever hope Hayes had that he would soon follow his co-defendant to freedom. Even though the DNA taken from inside a ski mask worn by the killer implicated another man with no connection to either of the original defendants, prosecutors are fighting to uphold Hayes' second-degree murder conviction and keep him in jail for life. The district attorney's office declined to comment, saying it does not comment on pending cases. But in court documents, prosecutors contend that Hayes has no procedural grounds to argue his innocence. "Defendant's sentence is not a death sentence," Chief of Appeals Terry Boudreaux wrote in an Oct. 4 court filing opposing Hayes' release. "Thus, to the extent that he seeks to bring a free-standing innocence claim, the law does not authorize it." Citing a state law and a recent Louisiana Supreme Court decision, Boudreaux argues that an innocence claim must either come from a defendant facing death or it "must involve new, material, noncumulative and conclusive evidence which meets an extraordinarily high standard and which undermines the prosecution's entire case." "Defendant does not meet that standard," he wrote. Before any of Hayes' claims are considered in any form, Boudreaux contends, a judge must consider all procedural objections raised by prosecutors. A hearing on those procedural issues is set for Oct. 28. Hayes' defense team, led by attorney Herbert Larson, is dumbfounded. His mother and aunts and other family members feel like they're trapped in a bizarre nightmare. And Hayes has been so deflated, his defense team said, he can barely talk about the case. In a recent letter to attorney Emily Maw, who is shepherding the case for the nonprofit Innocence Project, Hayes wrote in imperfect English, "Don't feel as though I don't have any feeling about the situation, because I do. Its just my emotions and tears are no more. And words, there just so hard to find. I hope that you understand. All I have is patient and belief." A ski mask and a shirt It was just after sunset April 5, 1997, when a masked gunman burst into Comeaux's and demanded money from Vanhoose, whose nondescript store in the shadow of the Huey P. Long Bridge was a popular fixture in the scrappy blue-collar neighborhood. Vanhoose tried unsuccessfully to talk to the gunman and was shot several times. Witnesses said they saw the killer run from store, jump through the passenger-side window of a waiting getaway car, then discard a ski mask and a tattered shirt out the same window as the car was speeding away. About four hours later, Hayes and Matthews, both 17 at the time, were stopped about 10 miles away in Harvey. Hayes was driving his sister's 1981 Grand Prix, which roughly matched the description of the getaway car. But there was one glaring difference between the car driven by Hayes and the car seen by witnesses: The passenger window in Hayes' sister's car was broken and stuck in the up position. It was a big hole in the case, but if detectives had any doubts about the involvement of the teenagers, the doubts apparently were overcome by Hayes' statement to detectives. During the first few rounds of questioning, Hayes gave an account of the evening that matched a separate statement by Matthews: joyriding around the West Bank, visiting family and friends, driving his brother-in-law to work. But during a final round of questioning at 5 a.m., Hayes reversed field and placed Matthews inside Comeaux's, saying he heard gunshots and saw his friend running from the store. Even with that admission, Hayes had a hard time providing details and seemed oblivious that a crime took place. At one point, he was asked by a detective, "When did he tell you that he was in fact involved in (the shooting)?" "He ain't never told nothing," Hayes responded. "He never did?" "I just found out." "You found out through us talking to you? "Yes, sir." Classic false confession In Hayes' application for post-conviction relief, defense attorneys attack the statement head-on, claiming that it is a classic example of a false confession. "That confession, frankly, isn't worth the paper it's typed on," Larson said. "It's a statement at 5 a.m. by a terrified, mentally retarded teenager who wasn't allowed to talk to anyone or use the bathroom. In his fourth statement he capitulates to statements from the interrogating officers. . . . If they had kept on for another hour, they could have had him confessing to the Kennedy assassination." Steven Drizin, a law professor at Northwestern University and nationally recognized expert on false confessions, studied Hayes' statements and declared it "the most naked, uncorroborated false confession I've ever seen." "There are no facts or details of the crime or the crime scene. Nothing. He doesn't know anything about the store. He doesn't even know his way around Bridge City. It's stunning to me that someone could be convicted on the basis of this statement," Drizin said. The existence of false or coerced confessions has been known for decades, but recent studies have put some numbers to the phenomenon. Nationally known defense attorney Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, which is based in New York, found that false confessions were made in 24 % of the 150 DNA exonerations studied by his group. A classic example of the phenomenon is the 1989 Central Park jogger case. In that case, 5 teenagers who confessed to beating and raping a female jogger in New York's Central Park were exonerated after DNA tests implicated another man who later confessed. But it wasn't just Hayes' confession that doomed him, defense attorneys believe. In Hayes' petition, Larson offers a host of other issues that he contends led to the conviction of an innocent person. Among them: -- His defense attorney at trial, Robert Pastor, was ineffective. Pastor, in a 2003 affidavit, agreed: "My representation of Travis was inadequate for a number of reasons. . . . I told the court when my trial continuance motion was denied that I was being forced to try a case of 2nd-degree murder from the hip, that I was ill and unprepared, and that was what they forced me to do." -- Prosecutors withheld evidence that could have cleared Hayes. That evidence included witness statements, a supplementary police report and the DNA evidence that excluded Ryan Matthews as the killer. -- Prejudicial evidence was allowed into the trial in violation of Hayes' constitutional rights. That evidence included a portion of Hayes' statement in which he said he smoked marijuana on the night of the killing and another portion in which he mentioned being "in jail," a reference to a juvenile prison sentence Hayes served for cocaine possession. In its written response to the defense motion, prosecutors confronted the objections one-by-one, shooting down each with the argument, "This claim should be dismissed as it is procedurally barred." Another man's DNA For the most part, the technical arguments in the case are lost on Hayes' loved ones. What is not lost is the fact that DNA evidence cleared Ryan Matthews, discredited Hayes' so-called confession and implicated another man. After spending more than $35,000 on DNA tests, prosecutors found that the only DNA on the ski mask left behind by the killer belonged to Rondell Love, who has admitted that he has never met Hayes or Matthews. Love is now serving 20 years in prison for manslaughter for slashing a woman's throat in Bridge City, a crime that occurred eight months after the Vanhoose killing. To support its theory that Love is the real killer, the defense team has referred to several witnesses who say Love bragged about the crime. In the defense petition, Troy Abrons recalls a conversation with Love: "He said the man (Vanhoose) said some 'smart-assed s- - -,' so Rondell shot him. . . . He said the man wouldn't give him any money." Family members said it didn't take DNA evidence to convince them of Hayes' innocence. Hayes, who stands just over 5 feet tall and weighs about 110 pounds, had never so much as been in a fight, much less a serious act of violence, they said. Hayes, a special education student and eighth-grade dropout, was easy to lull into a false confession, they said, because he was always a follower, always eager to please. "He was always a real meek, well-mannered person. We knew right away it was a ridiculous charge," said one of his aunts, Dolores Parker. Another aunt, Doris Forte, said she knew Hayes was innocent as soon as she heard about the car window contradiction and the "faded, raggedy old shirt" that witnesses said the killer tossed from the window along with the ski mask. "Neither of those boys would have been caught dead in a rag like that," she said. "They were always clean and pressed." Hayes' mother, Juanita, is a woman of few words and, like her son, a slow learner. She has a hard time following the details of the case, but she knows this: Recent events have almost made it too painful to visit her son in prison. "When it's time to go, I just can't stand to leave him like that," she said. "My son is innocent. Why can't they stand up and tell people they were wrong? Somebody needs to fix this mistake." Larson said his client isn't the only victim in the case. The position of the district attorney's office has "revictimized" Vanhoose's family, he said. Vanhoose's relatives could not be reached for comment. Last year, Vanhoose's son, Rocky, supported attempts by prosecutors to keep Matthews on death row. But mostly he spoke about the emotional trauma of seeing the case reopened. "I can't even use my regular thought process because I feel bombarded," Rocky Vanhoose was quoted saying during Matthews' appeal process. The Jefferson Parish district attorney's office, Larson said, can do a lot to help ease the pain of the Vanhoose family. "We know who's responsible for this murder," Larson said. "Why they're keeping an innocent man in prison instead of going after the real killer is a travesty." Even some of the jurors who convicted Hayes are concerned. Five of them have signed sworn statements, submitted with Hayes' petition, that the DNA test results would have made a difference at trial. "I think a new jury should look at this new evidence," stated one of the jurors, George Lorio. "I don't want anyone to stay in jail who is not guilty." Another juror Lawrence Aucoin, stated, "I have been shown the papers on the DNA evidence that there is now someone else who did the crime. We should have been told about that. I can guarantee you the result of the trial would have been different." To Larson and the Innocence Project investigators, working on the case as volunteers, the injustice is compounded by the fact Matthews is a free man. In an ironic twist of the legal system, Matthews' conviction, for first-degree murder, was easier to undo because he was on death row, giving him more appeal avenues and more resources than someone sentenced to life in prison. "It is a sad state of affairs," said attorney William Sothern, who represented Matthews for the Capital Appeals Project, "that in order to get exonerated, a man first needs to be sentenced to die." "Travis is like a forgotten man," Maw said. "There almost seems to be a feeling that somebody who is serving a life sentence has gotten off easy, so what are they complaining about? Well, natural life is not a light sentence. And for someone who is innocent, it's torture." (source: Times-Picayune) CALIFORNIA: THE PETERSON TRIAL ---- Analysts advise caution for defense; Trying to reveal 'real' killer is called possible fatal error This to Scott Peterson's lawyers from legal analysts: stick to what you can prove. There's a delicate balance between giving the jury reasonable alternatives to who killed Laci Peterson versus offering elaborate fantasies. So on Tuesday, when attorneys Mark Geragos and Pat Harris begin presenting their defense to the panel expected to decide whether Peterson is guilty of murdering his pregnant wife and their unborn child, strategy is crucial. When the trial started in June, Geragos made a promise to the jurors. He said, "The evidence is going to show clearly, beyond any doubt, that not only is Scott Peterson not guilty but Scott Peterson is stone-cold innocent." Legal experts say that, to keep his vow, Geragos may be tempted to prove his client's innocence by serving up the real killers to the jury -- and that could be a fatal mistake. "Don't insult the jury's intelligence by telling them you've found the real killer if you really haven't," recommends Michael Cardoza, a local criminal defense lawyer who has been following the double-murder case and commentating for several television outlets on all its twists and turns. "Don't put on any speculative evidence." Technically, Peterson's defense team doesn't have to put on any case. Peterson, under the law, is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Geragos and Harris have been lauded for their ability to turn prosecution witnesses into a positive for the defense. And even without the defense's deft legal footwork, some experts say prosecutors have failed to prove Peterson's guilt during their 19-week case. "The prosecution just threw everything against the wall to see what would stick," Cardoza said. "You have analytical people on the jury who in my opinion are just not going to buy it." But others disagree and say that Geragos and Harris have their work cut out for them. "In my opinion, the prosecution has met its burden," said Paula Canny, a former San Mateo County prosecutor who now does criminal defense work and has been sitting in on the case in Redwood City. She said Peterson's reputation as a serial liar is beyond repair. Rich Matthews, a legal consultant with the San Francisco firm Decision Analysis, said defense lawyers "don't have to rescue Peterson's reputation. They just have to raise reasonable doubt -- the legal standard for an acquittal." They can do that without even having to prove that Peterson is innocent, said Chuck Smith, a former prosecutor who is analyzing the case for the media. Geragos and Harris, who are under a court-enforced gag order, have not publicly discussed their strategy for Tuesday. They will, however, more than likely ask that the court dismiss the death-penalty case based on a lack of evidence -- a pro forma legal tactic that is sure to be denied by trial Judge Alfred Delucchi, according to legal experts. And Matthews, as well as most others, doubts that the two defense attorneys will call Peterson to testify on his own behalf because they don't want to risk having the jury dislike the defendant any more than the panel perhaps already does, he said. What people watching the case say is clear is that Geragos and Harris are focusing on three themes in an effort to clear their client: The Modesto police botched the case, Peterson's wife was abducted by strangers and the baby was born alive. During his opening statement, Geragos told jurors that he would prove that the couple's baby was delivered from his mother while Peterson was under police surveillance -- making it impossible for the 31-year-old former Modesto fertilizer salesman to be the killer. Throughout the trial, the defense attorney has tried to show that Laci Peterson was either nabbed by two dark, mysterious men who were lurking around her home in a light-colored van or by transients living in a nearby park. And they took her either for the flashy jewelry she was wearing or for the baby she was carrying inside of her. She was eight months pregnant when she vanished just before Christmas 2002. Geragos contends that Laci Peterson was held hostage for weeks until the baby was full term, then the child was cut out of her uterus. Finally, according to his theory, the kidnappers murdered the 27-year-old substitute teacher and then killed the baby, possibly by strangling him with a piece of twine or plastic. When the killers were finished, they dumped both of the bodies near the Berkeley Marina to set up Peterson for the fall. Smith said that Geragos has set a high bar for himself, and if he continues to try to prove his theory of the crime, then he runs a grave risk of losing the jury. "If this evidence is far-fetched and lacking in credibility, it will not only alienate the jury but will force them to ask why is he doing this? Is he not confident with his case?" Smith said. "If he's smart, he'll leave it alone. And from what I've seen of Mark Geragos, he's very smart. So I don't expect him to present a satanic cult theory. And I don't expect him to go out on any limbs." But Smith said the jury may expect Geragos and Harris to at least back up some of their statements. Specifically, he suggests they bring on experts who can refute the baby's time of death. Witnesses who testified for the prosecution said they believed the baby died Dec. 24, 2002 -- the day Laci Peterson was reported missing. But during cross-examination Geragos was able to show that the Contra Costa County medical examiner initially thought the baby was full term, putting the child's death sometime in January. Canny agrees that Geragos and Harris should build their case with experts. They should bring in experts to call into question testimony that a tracking dog picked up Laci Peterson's scent at the Berkeley Marina, where the defendant said he was fishing on the day of his wife's disappearance. They should bring in experts who can contest that Laci Peterson's and the baby's remains, discovered in April on the Richmond shoreline, were in the bay for 4 months. They should bring in experts to say the police wrongly focused on Peterson while excluding all others. But all those experts, according to Matthews, would drive the jury nuts. "They know experts are being paid," Matthews said. "And they're not automatically impressed with a resume. "They want to hear the defendant talk. But I think that's unlikely to happen in this case. So, Geragos should stay away from ridiculous theories. But he should tell a story that is both logically and emotionally satisfying." (source: San Francisco Chronicle) CONNECTICUT: Reprieve From Rell Among Ways To Delay Execution Michael Ross has several options open to him to halt his execution, which is scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 26, at 2:01 a.m. And there is one method of stopping the execution that is beyond his control. The state constitution empowers the governor to grant a reprieve in the case of criminal convictions "until the next legislative session and no longer." If Gov. M. Jodi Rell did so after the start of the next legislative session on Jan. 5, the reprieve could extend through the following session in 2006. Rell last week would not comment on whether she would exercise that power. She added, however, that her office's initial analysis is that Ross would have to request the reprieve. The constitution does not say anything about who would initiate the reprieve; it simply gives the governor the power to grant it. Rell did voice her support for the death penalty "in those areas where the crime is the most heinous, and this [case] certainly fits that." Unlike governors in some other states, Rell does not have the authority to commute a death sentence. Last Wednesday, when the execution date was set, Ross signed an affidavit stating that he would not pursue the various avenues of appeal available to him, including asking the governor for a stay of execution or asking the Board of Pardons to commute his death sentence. Although the affidavit puts Ross' signature on his intentions, lawyers doubt it could be enforced if Ross changes his mind. Among the appeals available to him are: A petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review his sentence. This option expires Dec. 7 - 90 days from the state Supreme Court's decision Sept. 8 not to reconsider its affirmation of his death sentences. A state writ of habeas corpus - a claim that he is being held unlawfully. Such petitions often center on claims that trial lawyers provided substandard representation. A federal writ of habeas corpus - the federal counterpart to a state writ. Ross could file either writ of habeas corpus right up to the day before his scheduled execution. The 3-year statute of limitations on a petition for a new trial probably has expired. Ross' convictions for killing four young women in eastern Connecticut date to 1987. His most recent death sentences were meted out in May 2000. The execution would take place at the Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers. A protocol developed by the Department of Correction anticipates that an execution might be halted right up to the moments before the toxic chemicals are injected into the convict. A dedicated phone line will run from the prison's command center into the execution chamber, "for the sole purpose of directing or suspending execution procedures." "If, at any stage of the execution prior to the death of the inmate, the warden is notified that a stay of execution has been ordered, execution procedures shall be halted and the witnesses shall be returned to the witness staging area," the protocol states. (source: Hartford Courant)
