{news} Ross Execution Postponed!

[David Bedell]

The Wed. execution has been postponed by the court!  (Hartford Courant story 
below) Please stand by for vigil information in case the execution is 
rescheduled. (Keep up to date at  http://www.dontkillinmynamect.org )

In the meantime, you can keep pressure on the legislature to abolish the 
death penalty.  You can send an email easily thru ACLU or Amnesty Intl 
websites:

ACLU Legislative Action Center:
http://www.congressweb.com/cweb4/index.cfm?orgcode=BGCLU%20

Amnesty International Action Center:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=11460



http://www.ctnow.com/hc-ross-hold,1,6207065.story?coll=hc-big-headlines-breaking&ctrack=1&cset=true
Ross Execution Postponed
By LYNNE TUOHY

January 24 2005, 12:27 PM EST

Wednesday's scheduled execution of serial killer Michael Ross, 45, was 
postponed indefinitely this morning by Chief U.S. District Judge Robert N. 
Chatigny, so that Chatigny can hear arguments on Ross' mental competency.

After hearing arguments from the state Public Defender's Office and from 
attorney Hubert Santos, who is assisting with legal strategy, Chatigny said 
he wanted to hear from experts on what effect close conditions of 
confinement over a long period of time have had on Ross' ability to truly 
volunteer to be executed, and the extent to which incarceration has affected 
what the judge called Ross' "volitional capacity."

"After going through numerous court hearings, where our motives and actions 
were criticized, finally our position is being vindicated," said Chief 
Public Defender Gerard Smyth. "There is a legitimate basis for contending 
Ross is mentally incompetent that has not been reviewed by the courts at 
all. "

Smyth said he applauds Chatigny's willingness to postpone the execution 
date.

"There should be no rush to resolve all these serious and important issues 
so the execution can go forward on Jan. 26," Smyth said.

The public defenders, who represented Ross for 17 of the 20 years he has 
been in custody, sought unsuccessfully to intervene last month in a 
competency hearing in New London Superior Court. They also submitted more 
than 150 pages of documents to the state Supreme Court in an effort to get 
Ross' mental state more closely assessed, but were rebuffed. Ross indicated 
in October that he wanted to forgo all further appeals and proceed to his 
execution, which had been scheduled for Wednesday at 2:01 a.m.

Ross was given the opportunity to participate in today's hearing in federal 
court by video closed circuit video relay from Osborn Correctional 
Institution, in Somers, where the execution was scheduled to take place, but 
he declined.

His lawyer, T. R. Paulding, said Ross preferred to stick with his busy 
schedule of visitors, in the event that the execution does take place 
Wednesday, rather than get back into the legal fray.

"I'm upset for him," Paulding said. "I'm upset for Michael. I'm very worried 
about him."

There is the possibility that state prosecutors could appeal Chatigny's 
ruling immediately to the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, but as of noon, 
when the court reconvened, they still were considering what strategy they 
would employ.

The first witness scheduled to testify was Dr. Stuart Grassian, a 
psychiatrist in Cambridge, Mass., who specializes in the psychiatric effects 
of stringent conditions of confinement and has closely studied death row 
inmates.

In a document submitted to the state Supreme Court earlier this month, 
Grassian, had noted: ``It is this desperate need to regain control which 
underlies an inmate's decision to volunteer [for execution] by waiving his 
appeals and dismissing his attorneys. The post-conviction appeal process in 
capital cases is inherently grueling -- a roller coaster of hope and 
despair, and often of utter helplessness.''

Ross, 45, has admitted killing eight women in Connecticut and New York 
during the 1980s and raping most of his victims. He was sentenced to death 
in 1987 and again in 2000 for the murders of four young women in eastern 
Connecticut. His scheduled execution would be the first in New England since 
1960.

The public defenders have said all along that they felt their best chance of 
halting the execution of their former client lay in the federal courts, and 
specifically the 2nd Circuit, which has never passed judgment on the 
constitutionality of Connecticut's death penalty scheme.

The appeals court has not had an occasion to do so since the U.S. Supreme 
Court permitted the resumption of executions in 1976. The federal appellate 
judges in New York -- removed from the emotionally-charged landscape in 
Connecticut -- may find it more palatable to issue a stay of the execution.

This is the potential legal challenge that Ross himself has said he most 
feared.

Chatigny had told Smyth to be prepared to call witnesses to support his 
claim that Ross is mentally incompetent, despite all other rulings and 
assertions to the contrary.

Another federal judge, U.S. District Judge Christopher F. Droney, dismissed 
a challenge to the lethal injection process on Jan. 10, filed on behalf of 
Ross' father -- Dan Ross -- because he deemed Ross was mentally competent to 
make his own decisions and no one should be permitted to intervene in a 
contrary manner.

Paulding has said that Ross has been concerned for quite a while that those 
acting in opposition to his stated wishes to be executed would reach the 2nd 
Circuit.

"This has been his concern right along," Paulding said.

Paulding also said the swirl of litigation has been unsettling to Ross, at a 
time when he is "trying to prepare himself mentally and emotionally" for his 
execution.

Copyright 2005, Hartford Courant