death penalty news
January 29, 2005
CONNECTICUT:
Death penalty opponents gather for prayer, protest
Death penalty opponents saw Saturday morning's near-execution of serial
killer Michael Ross as another peak in a quest with plenty of valleys.
"I said at the beginning it was a roller coaster ride," said Robert Nave,
executive director of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty.
"This is proving to be just that."
Ross' lethal injection was postponed early Saturday, less than two hours
before he was to become the first person executed in New England in 45
years. It was rescheduled for 9 p.m. Monday.
A handful of death penalty protesters who arrived early at a staging area
to march to Osborn Correctional Institution were stunned when Nave told
them early Saturday that Ross' attorney asked for a postponement.
Henry Broer, 72, a Korean War veteran from Somers, said he would be back at
the prison Monday to speak out against the execution.
"I just don't think the death penalty is ever right," he said. "I thought
all the legalities had taken place and were over with."
It was a similar scene at Somers Congregational United Church of Christ,
where about 100 death penalty opponents gathered for an interreligious
service before the planned execution. When the postponement was announced,
there was no cheering but people were upbeat.
Nave urged protesters to attend a seven-hour public hearing on the death
penalty Monday before the General Assembly.
"There's a constituency that votes and wants this law abolished," he said.
"We've come a long way through this tragic event. We need to pack that
house to overflowing."
At the interreligious service, Rabbi Jeffrey Glickman of Temple Beth Hillel
in South Windsor told the crowd to take an active role in opposing capital
punishment.
"Do not sit idly while others bleed," he said. "Whenever there is a death
penalty on the books, there's blood on everyone's hands. As a rabbi, and as
one who has studied books, I don't know how to wash off that blood."
Arthur Laffin's brother, Paul, was stabbed to death in Hartford in 1999,
but the killing didn't make him support executions.
"I oppose the death penalty because, ultimately, it violates God's command
that 'Thou shalt not kill,"' said Laffin, who was among the protesters
gathered at the church.
The anti-death penalty group includes numerous organizations known for
promoting nonviolent and human rights causes. The American Friends Service
Committee, Amnesty International, the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union,
the Connecticut Coalition for Peace and Justice and the New Haven Green
Party are among the organizations that have lobbied against capital
punishment and protested state efforts to execute Ross.
The Connecticut Catholic Conference has helped organize opposition to Ross'
execution, staking its position on the church's stance against all forms of
killing.
Opponents to the death penalty, who have organized around the motto, "Do
not kill in my name," cite numerous arguments why the state should be
stripped of the power to kill. The death penalty denies an individual's
civil liberties, fails as a deterrent to crime, is costlier due to legal
appeals than life in prison and risks killing innocent people, they say.
For weeks, as Ross' execution neared, opponents have staged prayers and
vigils and lobbied the General Assembly to repeal Connecticut's death
penalty law. An alliance of Roman Catholic church leaders, civil
libertarians, liberal activists and others sprung into action in the last
several months to fight the execution.
(source: AP / Newsday.com)
-------------------
Serial killer execution postponed - Father exhausted appeals to save son's life
The execution of convicted killer Michael Ross, scheduled for Saturday
morning, has been postponed until Monday, court officials have said.
The execution was delayed because of legal questions regarding a possible
conflict of interest with Ross's lawyer, Attorney T. R. Paulding said,
adding his client did not request the postponement.
Ross, who would be Connecticut's first executed inmate in more than 40
years, had been scheduled to die by lethal injection at 2 a.m. Saturday.
Earlier, his father's legal efforts to block his execution were turned down
by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ross has rejected all efforts to postpone his execution, saying he wants to
die. But his father has been trying to stop the state from going ahead with
the execution.
Ross has admitted killing eight women in at least five states, including
Connecticut and New York.
Ross, 45, was sentenced to death for killing four women in eastern
Connecticut in the 1980s.
Those four victims were Robin Stavinsky, April Brunais, Wendy Baribeault
and Leslie Shelley.
All his victims were 14 to 25 years old when Ross strangled them to death.
He admitting raping all but one of them first.
It is believed that his first murder victim was Dzong Tu, a Vietnam-born
graduate student in economics at Cornell University in New York. Her death
followed a string of rapes on campus in the Spring of 1981. Ross also was a
student at the university.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday night in favor of a request by
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to dissolve a temporary
stay and allow Ross' execution, which will be the first in New England
since 1960.
Earlier Friday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dissolved a stay of
execution put in place by a lower court.
However, it agreed to keep the stay in place until 12:01 a.m. Sunday, to
allow Ross' father, Dan, time to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Friday night, the Supreme Court turned down the father's request, without
comment, clearing the way for the execution.
(source: CNN)
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Federal judge pressures Ross attorney to stop execution
A federal judge who failed to stop the execution of Michael Ross scolded
the serial killer's attorney's Friday, threatening to take his law license
and telling him he was "terribly, terribly wrong" for helping Ross die.
Hours later, the attorney asked state officials to put the brakes on the
execution, saying he needed time to consider whether he had a conflict of
interest in the case.
In an extraordinary telephone conference Friday, U.S. District Judge Robert
Chatigny repeatedly challenged Ross' attorney, T.R. Paulding, who has been
helping Ross end his appeals. A transcript of the conversation was included
in documents filed with the high court by attorneys for Dan Ross, Michael
Ross' father.
"I see this happening and I can't live with it myself, which is why I'm on
the phone right now," Chatigny said. "What you are doing is terribly,
terribly wrong."
The judge said he was troubled by newly disclosed letters from an inmate,
Ramon Lopez, and a retired deputy prison warden, John Tokarz, who claimed
Ross' decision to die may have stemmed from harsh conditions on death row.
"You better be prepared to live with yourself for the rest of your life,"
Chatigny said. "And you better be prepared to deal with me if in the wake
of this an investigation is conducted and it turns out that what Lopez says
and what this former program director says is true, because I'll have your
law license."
Paulding would not say early Saturday whether Chatigny's comments prompted
him to ask for the delay.
"I feel that it is imperative I take the appropriate steps," Paulding said.
"I will be taking those steps with all due diligence in the next two days."
Paulding suggested during the call that prison conditions were not as harsh
as portrayed, saying death row inmates for many years had far more
privileges than other inmates.
Paulding, who spent much of the call listening to Chatigny, said he needed
time to think about the judge's remarks.
"I appreciate everything you're saying and I'm taking it with the utmost
seriousness and I will _ I will have a response," Paulding said. "I just
don't think I can respond at the moment."
"Well, you may," Chatigny replied. "I would urge you to tell your client
what I have said."
"I will," Paulding replied.
(source: AP / Newsday.com)
-----------------------------
Calm Before The Execution - At Prison And In Church, An Unusual Evening Unfolds
The Rev. Barry Cass scurried around the expansive Somers Congregational
Church Friday greeting the anti-death penalty activists who were arriving
and preparing for a prayer vigil.
On this night, the elegant church - for three centuries a pillar of
religious and social life in the community - is a gracious host. But for
Cass' own congregation - 500 strong and active throughout the year in
feeding the hungry, working with domestic-violence victims and with other
social causes - the impending execution of Michael Ross had not been a
focal point of discussion or a trigger of passion.
In this, Cass believes, the congregation has been very much a mirror of the
larger community. Some church members oppose the death penalty, some
support it.
"Oh yeah, I can understand why some people say it is the right thing to
do," Cass said. "And I say for me the issue isn't one person, it's that
every life is valued, not one above the other."
On the eve of the first execution in Connecticut in nearly 45 years, there
was no ambivalence in the church sanctuary.
The Rev. Stephen Sidorak told the gathering of 60 people that the execution
is "tantamount to an act of state-assisted suicide, casting Connecticut in
a Kevorkian-like starring role."
"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 Sidorak,
executive director of the Christian Conference of Connecticut.
"We are here because it is our shared belief that the death penalty is
morally indefensible and to confess our complicity in this execution," he
said. "We gather inter-religiously to reflect on the unimaginable suffering
that Michael Ross' brutal actions inflicted on the families of his victims,
and on the needless death about to take place at the hands of the state of
Connecticut. We gather to bind up the wounds of the victims' families ...
and of the one about to become another dead man walking."
Another speaker, Arthur Laffin, said he is unequivocally opposed to the
death penalty despite the killing of his brother, Paul Laffin, five years
ago in Hartford. Laffin, 42, was stabbed by Dennis Soutar, a disturbed
client at St. Elizabeth's shelter where Laffin was executive director.
Soutar was found incompetent to stand trial and was placed in the state's
forensic hospital for 60 years.
Laffin said he and his mother, soon after his brother's death, asked the
public to forgive Soutar. Laffin read the names of Ross' eight victims and
said that although he deplores Ross' crimes he doesn't think the state
should execute him.
Earlier, David Cruz-Uribe of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death
Penalty settled into a room near the sanctuary with several fellow
activists to plan the subsequent drive to Shaker Field and the candlelight
march to the outskirts of Osborn Correctional Institution, where Ross was
to be executed. He was asked what he would say to those church members who
feel Ross should die.
"What we hear is that people believe we owe it to families of the victims."
Cruz-Uribe said. "The network is desperately trying to frame this in a way
that it is not about Michael Ross. It's a discussion of policy and what is
an appropriate state response to a heinous crime."
(source: Hartford Courant)
