Jan. 29
CONNECTICUT:
Death-row syndrome ignites debate
During Michael Ross' final days, there was a flurry of court activity.
Those trying to keep him alive tried to persuade judges the serial killer
did not have the mental capacity to make the decision to forego his
appeals. The question of whether a person is mentally competent or not is
a difficult one to answer. But one thing is clear - it's a debate often
heard in U.S. courtrooms.
Also growing in popularity is the argument made by the Connecticut public
defender's office, which maintained Ross had "death row syndrome." In
other words, defense attorneys argue, a long stay on death row - under
unpleasant conditions - can cause a mental disorder that causes inmates to
lose their will to live.
They then drop their appeals - as Ross did.
Ross, who killed 8 women in Connecticut and New York in the early 1980s,
last year fired the public defenders trying to keep him alive and hired a
private attorney to help push for a quick execution. But the public
defender's office intervened in both state and federal court to argue
that, because of death-row syndrome, Ross was not mentally competent to
make a life-and-death choice.
"One of the reasons to void this execution is because he was coerced by
his conditions he has lived under on death row into dropping his appeals,"
Connecticut Chief Public Defender Gerard Smyth said this week. "It's part
of his depression."
In deciding such cases, courts must measure guidelines created by the
nation's highest court in 1990. Judges must answer these questions:
Is the person suffering from mental illness?
If so, does it impair him or her from understanding all of the legal
options available to avoid execution?
If a person understands those options, does their mental capacity prevent
them from making a rational choice?
In Ross' case, prosecutors who wanted to proceed with the execution and
the public defenders who want to save Ross' life agree on the 1st 2
questions. Ross has some mental problems such as sexual sadism, depression
and anxiety, but he is well aware of all of his legal options to avoid
death.
It's on the 3rd question that the two sides differ. Prosecutors said that
Ross made a legitimate choice to accept his sentence. But the public
defenders argue that Ross was not accepting his punishment as much as
committing suicide prompted by his despair from spending almost 2 decades
on death row.
Elizabeth Marsh, director of the Criminal Justice Center at the Quinnipiac
School of Law, said such differences of opinion are not uncommon.
"You can't look at a meter that goes off if he is competent or
incompetent," she said. "You have to weigh competing expert testimony. And
nothing is a guarantee. The public defender's expert could determine he is
competent. The prosecution's expert could determine he is incompetent."
The mental competency argument is most often brought up to determine if a
criminal is competent to stand trial. It is decided on 2 basic criteria:
Does the defendant understand the charges against him or her? Can the
defendant assist in his or her own defense?
In the past 18 months, M. Hatcher Norris, a criminal defense lawyer in
Hartford, has had 3 of his clients excused from standing trial based on
mental competency questions.
But "this is the 1st I've heard of death row syndrome," he said. "The one
thing about being on death row is that it will have a tremendous impact. I
imagine a psychiatrist could argue it is an attempt at suicide."
The syndrome argument is becoming a more common defense, said Todd Fernow,
a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law. That's because
death row is much tougher than regular prison. Inmates are isolated in
smaller cells. They can't interact with others and are subject to stricter
security that could contribute to depression and suicidal thoughts.
But isn't death row supposed to be unpleasant?
"This discussion is happening nationwide," Fernow said. "It is an open
question as to whether death row should be so arduous that it wears down a
prisoner's ability to assert his constitutional rights. If you had an
incarceration scheme aimed at lessening the appeals of a death row inmate,
it is a valid question."
A spokesman with the chief state's attorney's office declined to comment
on the issue this week because it pertained to an ongoing case.
But Richard Wintory, the vice president of the National District Attorneys
Association, said the rough conditions of death row are not designed to
discourage an inmate from appealing his case.
"That's nonsense," said Wintory, a prosecutor in Tucson, Ariz. He said
there is a reason to make rough on death row. "There is a dead police
officer in Dallas after seven inmates in Huntsville, Texas, escaped death
row. This is a group of people who are the worst of the worst with nothing
to lose. They have got to be kept under the most secure conditions."
Wintory said it is not uncommon for a death row inmate to drop his
appeals, but he called it "unique" for the public defenders to try to stop
the execution after they had been fired by their client.
"This is the corruption and kidnapping of the process by anti-death
penalty zealots with no purpose other than overturning the law," Wintory
said. "This is not suicide. These (inmates) are just guys who see the
appeals process is grinding along with one obvious result and they want to
take some control of their life."
(source: The News-Times)
******************
Michael Ross' Crimes and Convictions
A chronological look at Michael Ross' crimes, convictions and sentences:
* May 1981: Dzung Ngoc Tu, a 25-year-old student, is killed in Ithaca,
N.Y.
* August 1981: A 25-year-old woman is raped and beaten in Rolesville, N.C.
* September 1981: Ross attacks a 15-year-old girl in La Salle City, Ill.
He is convicted of unlawful restraint, fined $500 and put on probation.
* January 1982: Tammy Williams, 17, of Brooklyn, is raped and killed.
* March 1982: Paula Perrera, 16, of Wallkill, N.Y., is raped and killed.
* April 1982: A 26-year-old off-duty policewoman is attacked after
answering her door in Licking County, Ohio. Ross is arrested the next day
and charged with assault.
* June 1982: Debra Smith Taylor, 23, of Griswold, Conn., is raped and
killed.
* August 1982: Ross pleads guilty in the Ohio assault case. He is fined
$1,000 and sentenced to six months in jail.
* November 1983: Robin Stavinsky, 19, of Norwich, Conn., is raped and
killed.
* April 1984: Leslie Shelley and April Brunais, both 14 and of Griswold,
Conn., are killed. Brunais was sexually assaulted.
* June 1984: Wendy Baribeault, 17, of Lisbon, Conn., is raped and killed.
* June 1984: Police arrest Ross after a witness reports seeing a blue car
at the Baribeault crime scene. He confesses to killing Baribeault and
leads police to the bodies of Shelley and Brunais.
* June 1984: Ross leads police to Williams' remains. He is charged with
Baribeault's murder.
* July 1984: Ross is charged with the deaths of the 5 other Connecticut
victims.
* November 1985: Ross pleads guilty to murder in the deaths of Williams
and Taylor. He later receives life sentences.
* July 1987: Ross is sentenced to 6 separate death sentences for killing
Baribeault, Stavinsky, Shelley and Brunais.
* July 1994: The U.S. Supreme Court upholds Ross' convictions but
overturns the death sentences because the judge hearing the case at the
time incorrectly excluded a letter from a psychiatric report. The court
orders a new penalty phase.
* April 2000: Jurors in the second penalty hearing reject Ross' defense
that a mental disorder drove him to rape and kill. He receives 6 death
sentences.
* October 2004: Ross' execution date is set for Jan. 26, 2005, after Ross
says he does not want to pursue any more appeals.
* December 2004: A Superior Court judge rules that Ross is mentally
competent to make the decision to die. Connecticut's public defenders and
Ross' father continue legal attempts to stop the execution.
* Jan. 24, 2005: A federal judge stays Ross' execution after a
psychiatrist testifies that Ross may not have been competent because of
the mental effects of years in seclusion on death row.
* Jan. 25, 2005: The state Supreme Court rejects further appeals, but the
justices are divided over whether to postpone the lethal injection until a
study of the state's death penalty can be completed. Officials delay the
execution until Jan. 28.
* Jan. 26, 2005: A federal judge issues a restraining order that would
prohibit the state from executing Ross for at least 10 days, even as the
U.S. Supreme Court considers lifting the stay.
* Jan. 27, 2005: The U.S. Supreme Court lifts the stay of execution. The
execution is rescheduled for Jan. 29.
* Jan. 28, 2005: A federal appeals court lifts the restraining order, but
delays the execution 1 more day to give Ross' father a chance to appeal to
the U.S. Supreme Court. The court rejects the appeal.
* Jan. 29, 2005: Ross' attorney receives a delay of execution until Jan.
31 to address a possible conflict of interest. Prison officials say they
were bound by state law to honor his request.
(source: Associated Press)
*****************
'Forgotten' Victim's Memory Is Upheld
Friends call Dzung Ngoc Tu a forgotten victim. The 25-year-old graduate
student from Bethesda was one of eight women that Michael Bruce Ross
confessed to killing in Connecticut and New York in the 1980s. He told
investigators that he strangled Tu in 1981 on the Cornell University
campus, where both were studying agriculture.
After Ross's arrest in 1984 in one slaying, he admitted that he killed Tu
and the other women and that Tu was his 1st victim. Although he was not
prosecuted in Tu's death, he was convicted of murder in 1987 in 4 other
cases. And after years of legal wrangling, he is scheduled to be executed
Monday in Connecticut.
"She was the one about which little was known," said her older brother Lan
Tu, 50, who lives in the Washington area. "I'd like people to know that
she lived, and what kind of person she was -- smart, very hardworking and
full of kindness."
Ross, 45, a Connecticut native, has said he wants to be put to death. His
legal appeals have been mandatory in a death penalty case, and as of last
night he had eschewed further, voluntary appeals. His would be the 1st
execution in New England since 1960.
Under a death warrant issued in October, the state was to have until the
end of tomorrow to carry out the lethal injection. If Ross is not executed
by then, the state will have to return to court and ask a judge to set a
new date.
Yesterday, the New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit
lifted a stay of execution that was granted Wednesday by a federal judge
in Connecticut. The appeals court ordered him put to death at 12:01 a.m.
tomorrow.
The U.S. Supreme Court, acting on a motion by the Connecticut attorney
general, ordered that the execution take place at 2:01 a.m. today. But
state officials delayed the lethal injection until Monday morning to
address a possible conflict of interest with Ross's attorney, T.R.
Paulding, according to the Associated Press.
Last night, Ross's father, Dan Ross, unsuccessfully sought a U.S. Supreme
Court stay of execution, contending that his son was not mentally
competent to make the decision to forgo further appeals.
The scheduled execution has aggravated the years of anguish endured by Lan
Tu and his parents, who moved to Bethesda from Vietnam in 1969. Lan Tu
said his family learned only last week that Ross long ago confessed to
killing Dzung Tu. He said the family believed for years that the slaying
was a mystery.
"When I informed my parents, it was like a bolt of lightning," said Tu,
adding that his mother is in poor health and that she did not want to talk
publicly about the case. "We had not heard anything about it for so many
years."
Cornell declined to comment yesterday. But earlier this week, the
university gave the New York Times copies of a campus police
investigator's typed notes showing that the investigator contacted the Tu
family about Ross in 1987.
In 1987, when Ross confessed to a psychiatrist that he killed Tu, he was
on trial for killing 4 other women, according to Michael Malchik, a former
Connecticut detective who was instrumental in solving the cases. Ross
eventually confessed to the police and publicly in the news media that he
killed Tu and the other women.
Besides being sentenced to lethal injection in four slayings, he was
sentenced to prison in one other killing. Because he was given multiple
death sentences, prosecutors decided not to put him on trial in the other
killings, including Tu's.
Malchik said yesterday that he assumed the Tu family knew that Ross had
admitted to killing Dzung Tu. "There seemed to be some confusion about
whether they were notified or not," Malchik said. "I thought the police in
New York were going to handle it. I felt badly, but it wasn't up to me to
notify them."
Dzung Tu's former roommate at Vassar College, where Tu received her
undergraduate degree, said that she was aware of Ross's confession about
Tu and that she possibly heard about it from a TV news report. She said
she thought that police, prosecutors and reporters gave short shrift to
her friend's death, focusing their attention on the other killings.
"Dzung is known as the forgotten victim," said Victoria Balfour, 50, now a
freelance writer living in New York. Balfour described her friend as 5
feet tall, 95 pounds and "so polite." Balfour said Tu, who came to the
United States when she was 13, was like a little sister to several friends
and brought out the "mothering instinct" in them.
"She wanted to help the world. She was full of gentleness," Lan Tu said.
"I can still remember her looking up at me with all the trust in the
world." For her parents, "It was very traumatic. . . . A part of them
died," he said. "The damage has never really healed."
Tu was reported missing May 14, 1981. 3 days later, her body was found.
Ross told investigators that he raped and killed Tu on campus, then pushed
her body into a lake. Investigators said that her body had plunged over a
waterfall and that it was found in a gorge.
Tu said he planned to stand outside Osborn Correctional Institution in
Somers, Conn., for the execution. "I realized there's still one thing I
can do for my little sister," he said. "And that's see this thing to the
end."
(source: Washington Post)
*******************
Death Penalty Deserves To Die
In 17th-century Connecticut, there was no compulsion in expediting
executions of witches. They were hanged in a matter of weeks.
Abracadabra, more than 350 years later, it's taken close to 2 decades to
kill a man many rightfully viewed as the devil incarnate.
As the porch light flickered Friday night for confessed multiple-murderer
and rapist Michael Ross, the mind-numbing process of whether to kill him
leaves state lawmakers with no choice when they begin debating the merits
of the death penalty Monday.
Kill it. End the misery. R.I.P.
Hell, call the abolition the "Ross Amendment" if you'd like. Just no more
posturing or pontificating. And no more of this craziness that makes the
state's threat of a death penalty more bark than bite.
Think about it: If it takes this long to terminate a man who wasn't
contesting the action, just imagine if he had tried to fight it?
A deranged man had to prove his sanity. A gutless killer volunteers to
die, yet is granted numerous reprieves. Due process gives convicted
killers years to appeal, then when their time is up, supporters ask that
their lives be spared because the prolonged delays have been debilitating.
Now we've got a clinical definition - "Death Row Phenomena" - for those
who rot in their cells while they wait for their last meal. Like we're
supposed to care.
The syndrome has become a convenient excuse for appeals courts in England
to overturn executions in the Caribbean, where English law still holds
sway. On numerous occasions, according to a University of Connecticut law
professor who has studied the matter, English high courts have scuttled
executions scheduled for the islands.
"It's their belief that to keep someone on death row for a very long time
by itself amounts to ... inhuman or degrading treatment," said Richard S.
Kay, now in his 30th year at UConn. Kay dabbed at a salad in the Hartford
campus's cafeteria this week as we talked about a book he has co-edited
with colleague Mark W. Janis and another lawyer. A chapter in "European
Human Rights Law" delves into this death row syndrome.
There is a distinction, Kay says, with what has been applied overseas and
the Ross case. Here, there was the argument that Ross' stay on death row
impaired his judgment in waiving his rights to fight for his life. In the
UK, where there is no death penalty, judges have ruled that the extended
stays - 20 years or more - on Caribbean death rows were punishment enough.
"The other critical question in regards to that is why have they been in
prison for 20 years?" Kay asks. "In many cases, the reason is the
defendant himself has been exploiting the legal system to create delays.
So, there is a certain irony in these cases."
In Canada, the government won't extradite capital felony convicts unless
there are assurances they won't be put to death.
Divorce lawyers tell husbands, "It's cheaper to keep her." The same holds
true with holding firm on life in prison with no parole. With hundreds of
thousands of dollars in public money spent on litigation to keep one death
row inmate out of the chair, it's got to be cheaper to simply feed them 3
squares for the rest of their lives.
Alice Young of Windsor was hung in 1647 for witchcraft. She is the state's
1st recorded execution.
With the notoriety Michael Ross has generated, he's earned the distinction
to be the last.
(source: Opinion, Stan Simpson, Hartford Courant)
******************
Ross Murder Drama Lingers In Griswold----EFFECTS OF SERIAL KILLINGS STILL
FELT, TWO DECADES LATER
The on-again, off-again legal drama over the execution of serial killer
Michael Ross this week is not the sort of thing that Andrea Charron ever
thought would bring her closer to her daughters.
But as Griswold dug out from back to back snowstorms, and the media
descended on the town that was ground zero for Ross' criminal spree 2
decades ago, that's exactly what Charron realized as she and her daughters
sat in her home one night and discussed their memories of those haunting
days when the young women and girls started disappearing.
Like many Griswold residents - particularly women who were teenagers when
Ross' murders began - the Charrons were deeply affected by the events and
their aftermath. 2 of Ross' victims came from the same Bethel Road
neighborhood in the Pachaug section of town where Charron lived. Her two
daughters, Julie and Laura, knew the victims from school, and with the
help of therapy, one of them would recover from the searing memories of
those years. The other would attribute her choice of a husband to the
aftereffects of the Ross case - details that did not emerge until the
intense revival of interest in the case this week.
"I found out things from my daughters this week about what was going on
back then that I didn't know," Andrea Charron said. "And we are just one
family with a story like this to tell. Just imagine the effect on all of
these families in the communities that these crimes touched."
Griswold and its populated hub, the borough of Jewett City, have changed
considerably since the early 1980s, swept by a tide of economic
transformation in New England. A community that once relied on a thriving
agricultural economy along the Rhode Island border, and textile mills
along the riverbanks in town, now draws its sustenance from jobs at the
nearby casinos or the Fortune 500 companies and government contractors 45
minutes down I-395 South in Groton or New London.
"We've replaced the old textile jobs and their economic impact by becoming
a bedroom community along the 395 corridor," said Griswold First Selectman
Paul J. Brycki. "But this is also quite a close and traditional town where
families who put down roots generations ago have stayed, so there's still
a whole lot of people who lived through the horror of those events 20
years ago together. It's not something the town forgets."
To many, the revival of interest in the Ross murders as the scheduled
execution neared seemed to telescope time and reignite teenage memories
that were dormant for years.
"During that whole time I had to walk 1 mile to Griswold High School every
day," said Tammy Barber, 37, the assistant tax collector in Griswold who
will begin a new job at a health care company in Groton next week. "I was
always looking over my shoulder. If a car stopped, my heart would stop and
I walked faster. After they caught Michael Ross and I realized he lived
just a half-mile from my house, where I walked to high school every
morning, I had a big pit in my stomach. That's what I call fear."
Charron and her daughters live in comfortable houses a few doors from each
other around the old family homestead in Griswold. Reliving the Ross
murders this week only reminded them about how great an impact they had on
their lives.
"I couldn't help thinking about this all weekend because all the media
attention made me recall those awful days," said Charron, 54, a neat,
talkative woman who works at Griswold Town Hall in Jewett City as
secretary to the 1st selectman.
"Michael Ross took away Griswold's innocence," she said. "In this quiet
corner of the state, we were very convinced of our safety. Kids ran
around, took their bikes wherever and just had fun, and parents didn't
worry. But when the girls started disappearing, we became very protective
of our children, and my daughters were afraid because I was afraid."
The Charrons were always a close family and enjoyed long weekends and
holiday picnics with an extended clan that was distributed throughout the
small towns along the Rhode Island border. In 1982, when Charron's
daughter Laura was 6, they often drove up to see relatives in Canterbury,
where Laura spent most weekends with a cousin her age. The drive north,
through rolling farmlands and occasional forests, framed Laura's memory of
her childhood, because she so looked forward to being with her cousin.
In June 1982, Debra Smith Taylor of Griswold, 23, disappeared after a
quarrel with her estranged husband. Her body was found by hunters in a
rural wooded area of Canterbury, near the Depot Road Extension, the
following October. But her murder remained unsolved and seemed an isolated
incident until additional disappearances of young women during the next
two years. Still, everyone was talking about Taylor's death, and the
mystery of it had considerable impact on 6-year-old Laura.
"I can still remember at that age riding through Canterbury in the back
seat of my parents' car, and we would get to the spot in the woods where
the body was found - one of my parents must have said something as we
drove by," Laura, now 28 and known by her married name, Laura Wheatley,
recalled this week. "I still remember the dirt road running through the
trees, and the stone wall."
Before long, the discovery of a body became associated in Laura's mind
with her favorite childhood drive to her cousin's. But she was too young
to take it all in and realize the impact it would have later in life.
"Every time we drove to Canterbury and drove past that area, I would look
out the window into those woods with curiosity," Laura said. "But I didn't
know at that age just what this meant. I'm sure it affected me, but I just
didn't know how."
On Easter Sunday in 1984, best friends Leslie Shelley and April Brunais,
both 14, disappeared while walking to a pizza parlor. Julie and Laura
Charron, then 12 and 8, lived in the same Bethel Road neighborhood as the
missing girls and knew them from Griswold Elementary School.
The Charron girls' lives changed immediately. They were no longer allowed
out of their backyard while playing, and couldn't wander down the streets
on their bikes. They shared with their mother a secret code word that they
had to demand if someone other than their parents picked them up from
school.
"As soon as Leslie and April disappeared, we were suddenly restricted to
the yard," Laura said. "I remember playing with my cousins in the yard and
we always played cops and robbers. The bad guy we were looking for was
always Michael Ross."
The transition to a safety-conscious childhood was more difficult for
older sister Julie, who had enjoyed more freedom before.
"It was a difficult period for me," said Julie, now 32. "I was 12, an age
when you want your independence from your parents and suddenly we couldn't
go for walks to our friends. ... Once they caught [Ross] I thought, `They
have him now, what's the point of keeping me home?' Later, I understood
why my mother was still so frightened."
But the impact of the murders, particularly the long-term effect of her
mother's concern, would eventually catch up with Julie.
"I had been a very trusting kid, I liked and trusted everybody," Julie
said. "But after the murders I was much more reserved and standoffish. I
was very skeptical with anyone before I let my guard down."
In 1990, while Julie was a freshman at Central Connecticut State
University, her grandmother died. Julie was very close to her grandmother,
and her mother, out of concern for how Julie was handling the loss,
suggested that she sign up with campus counseling at CCSU for therapy.
When she began her sessions with a middle-aged woman therapist, Julie
said, she spoke at first about her grandmother's death. But the therapist
quickly picked up that Julie was experiencing deeper concerns about death
and realized that her childhood memories of the neighborhood murders had
affected her personality and outlook about people.
"The therapist really helped me focus on the issues of death related to
what happened to Leslie and April," said Julie, now known by her married
name, McGrew. "She made me think about and deal with the trauma of what
had happened there, and how my whole outlook on people had been deeply
affected by the murders. ... I had become withdrawn and introverted with
strangers because of the murders, out of the experience of starting my
teenage years fearful of people. In college I was still very fearful of
people."
With the therapist, Julie worked on a number of exercises, rehearsing how
to start conversations with people, how to shake hands, and how to
confidently smile while walking down the street. She also worked on the
issue of distinguishing between legitimate fears about strangers and
learning to trust people she didn't know but who posed no threat.
"When I finished therapy with her, my whole outlook changed," Julie said.
"The difference between my freshman and sophomore years was dramatic."
For years, Julie's mother, Andrea, believed that the therapist had
exaggerated the importance of the murders and shifted her daughter's care
away from recovering from her grandmother's death. But during the rush of
the publicity this week over the scheduled Ross execution, they discussed
Julie's therapy almost 15 years ago, and Andrea realized how much impact
the murders in Griswold had had on her daughter.
Younger daughter Laura was also deeply affected by one aspect of her
memories of Ross.
"When you looked at pictures of Michael Ross on TV he appeared so normal,
so average, not evil-looking," Laura said. "So, to me, average-looking,
normal men can actually be evil. That's how I lived my life."
When she started dating, Laura said, most of the men she went out with
were in the military, which made her feel comfortable, not simply because
her father and grandfather were in the military. She eventually married a
former sonar technician on Navy submarines.
"Military men just made me feel safer," Laura said. "I just felt that I
could trust them more."
The week's reflection during the legal drama over Ross' execution led to
one other insight.
"We always felt that an execution would finally bring this to a close for
us," Charron said. "But now I know that it's never over because it is in
our lives forever."
(source: Hartford Courant)
********************
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 1st 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 7-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.
(sources: Associated Press / 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 8 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 4 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)
******************
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 2
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 3 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 1st 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, 5 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)
